


The Birds and The Bees

by Imagining_in_the_Margins



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Dom Spencer Reid, Drunken Kissing, Eventual Smut, F/M, Graduate School, Innocence, Jealous Spencer Reid, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Spencer Reid, Post-Canon, Post-Prison Spencer Reid, Professor Spencer Reid, Professors, Reader-Insert, Sex, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, Virginity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29540226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagining_in_the_Margins/pseuds/Imagining_in_the_Margins
Summary: Fantasies were not a strange or new phenomenon to Spencer Reid. As a young boy, he had spent many early afternoons tracing the climbing vines of the cape honeysuckle. It was an imposter, he knew, not at all related to the true Lonicera americana. But still, he would drag his finger along the protruding filaments, dreaming of what it might be like to pull the stem from its place. To bring the nectar to his lips and feel the way the sticky sweetness tries to force his mouth shut. To give into the temptation and gluttony and greed and ignore the resistance. To press soft petals against his tongue until there was nothing left.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Comments: 17
Kudos: 151





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reader interviews for a position as Dr. Spencer Reid’s Teaching Assistant, and Spencer learns something special about her.

It was days like this that I both deeply envied and related to hummingbirds. Days where I was only barely on time, tumbling up archaic steps of ancient buildings and trusting my instincts not to let me fall. I envied them because they were effortlessly graceful. Beautiful in their simplicity and fondness for sweets.

Hummingbirds’ hearts can beat as fast as 1,260 beats per minute. It sort of felt like that for me, too. Not just because I was woefully out of shape and in a pencil skirt of all things, but because I was dreadfully nervous. Even when I finally reached the top of the stairs and managed to step inside, I felt more trapped than free. Like I’d somehow stumbled from honeysuckle fields into a concrete cage.

The stale air of the building that had only recently begun gathering students again almost felt refreshing compared to the Virginia heat. I couldn’t be sure if it was really as cold as it felt or if my sticky, damp skin just made the difference more noticeable. Either way, I knew I had to pull myself together before I made it down the hallway and met my fate.

I took a moment to breathe and remind myself that, no matter how badly I wanted the job, it was still just an interview. I‘d survive. Probably.

I’d never even met the professor in person, which was already both strange and unfortunate. At least, as it related to the position; most professors were particularly picky about the graduate students they hired. I had a feeling that a man with three PhDs would definitely value a demonstrated work ethic before selecting a person to tag along with them for a whole year.

But I was doing that thing again — worrying about things that I had no control over. Things that might not even matter in a few moment’s time. Considering my experience in academia, I was going into this already armed with the knowledge that there was 50/50 chance that I would loathe this man’s entire existence before I even said hello.

I’d only spoken to him on the phone and in e-mails, but something about his awkward, overly formal demeanor was almost charming. He just seemed so… _nice_.. It reminded me of the days I would stand in the full-length mirror, trying to admire myself in a suit, to finally picture myself as an adult woman, only to find a child in dress up staring back at me.

God, I hoped he was like me.

God, I hoped he liked me.

My knuckles hit the wood, quietly and reserved. The voice that returned, however, was neither of those things. It was frantic and rushed, displaying a nervousness that resonated deeply with me in that moment.

“Come in!” he called.

I couldn’t keep him waiting but forcing my hand to turn the handle took more effort than I’d like to admit.

“Hello, Professor Reid?” I asked, as if his nameplate wasn’t directly beside me.

“Oh. Hello! You…”

His voice cut off just as swiftly as it had started, and I tried not to read too far into the fact it coincided so perfectly with his eyes meeting mine. Those left, too. He scanned me so quickly that I wondered if this was what it was like to be one of his books. When I had heard that he could read 20,000 words per minute, I thought it had been an over exaggeration.

But I felt it. I felt him memorizing all of my features in the time it took me to realize for the first time that his eyes were brown.

“You must be (y/n),” he said when time resumed its normal pace and the papers in his hands settled on the desk, “Please, take a seat.”

“Thank you.”

Whatever he saw, he seemed unimpressed with. Perhaps I was just being too insecure, but for the rest of the interaction, he seemed to look everywhere but me. Like he’d already learned everything he needed to know.

Still, there was a faint tint to his cheeks that I swore hadn’t been there before.

_Okay, now I’m positive that I’m projecting_.

“How’s your day going? Sorry for the mess in here.”

“My day’s going well!” I answered, trying to sound chipper but probably just sounding annoying as I continued, “I was glad you called, actually, I—”

“Yeah, sorry for the late notice. I just got back from a case and I could really use the help sooner than I thought.”

Although he’d cut me off, I was strangely unaffected by it. Normally I would take it as a red flag, but something about the tilt in his voice comforted me. A reminder that he was, for whatever reason, also uncomfortable with the stiff, formal nature of these things.

“You don’t need to apologize, Professor Reid. Believe it or not, I want to be here.”

I hadn’t been sure about that before, but I was now. That feeling only grew in intensity when his eyes finally wandered back up, meeting mine just as I took the seat across from him.

He smiled. The kind of smile that just as easily becomes a chuckle, ruining the words your heart wanted you to say and replacing them with the ones your brain told you were preferable. A self-preserving smile.

“Pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that sentence.”

“Oh, nonsense,” I chuckled back, “I always hear students talking about your class.”

“Yeah, to audit,” he replied in the most dejected whisper.

I had only just met him, but I decided then that it wasn’t a tone I liked to hear from him. 

“Well, to audit it would be a mistake. It’s not often we get to learn from someone like you. Someone who’s... been through it all in person rather than just in theory.”

His face scrunched up, and for a second I thought it was a bad scrunch. One that told me I’d overstepped. But then the tension melted away again, dropping his jaw open far enough that I could see the way his tongue curled in on itself before he settled with, “Thanks, that’s very kind of you to say.”

I got the feeling he didn’t believe it, but also wasn’t willing to argue with me on it. If given the opportunity, I would have. I would have explained that I’d read every article with his name on it that I could find. That, despite being in another field understanding almost none of it, I read each and every word of his many published papers. But I got the feeling he wasn’t well-accustomed to flattery, and I didn’t want to overdo it. Brown-nosing wasn’t how I wanted to get the job.

Still, when I flashed him a smile in return, I saw that lost look in his eyes again. A distant, far off blankness. A vastness like the night sky that hid universes.

“So… How is your day going?” I asked, realizing that he’d never actually answered for himself.

Dr. Reid seemed caught off guard, only managing to give a half-shrug and a weak, “Oh, it’s… fine, I guess?” “Were you not anticipating that question?”

“No, not really.”

At least he was honest.

“People don’t usually ask me.”

Maybe a little too honest, depending on who you asked. I could relate to that, too. Speaking without pausing first to wonder if I was following the ever-changing social rules.

Which is why I didn’t bother to hide the way I laughed through a lopsided smile when I said, “That’s so sad!”

“I mean, to be fair, I usually just tell them before they can ask.”

If I had been concerned that I was misreading humility as embarrassment, I didn’t need to worry any longer. His cheeks were now, undoubtedly, a dark, discernible pink.

“That’s called being an efficient communicator if you ask me,” I joked.

And to my surprise, he laughed. 

“Efficient communicator. I like that.”

“Speaking of, we should probably talk about the job,” I reminded. Was it too pushy? Probably. I blamed it on the regrettable double shot espresso I had before I came. The hummingbird’s heartbeat seemed like a tiny blip on the radar to me now.

“Right! The job. That’s the real reason you’re here.”

Dr. Reid cleared his throat, shaking his head like I’d actually rained on the proverbial parade and he needed to free himself of the droplets. I probably should’ve been less blatant as I stared, my mind currently fixated on the way unruly curls somehow still seemed perfectly settled back into their place.

But then the silence got too long, and I rerouted my gaze to find him watching me with an equal confusion.

“Busted,” I muttered with my own awkward laugh that was once again returned.

He was a good audience; I’ll give him that.

“Well, it’s a pretty standard job. Obviously, I need someone who’s able to put up with my weird schedule. But when I’m here, it’ll be pretty much like any other assistant position.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

In the few seconds of silence that followed, I was once again distracted by him. That time, it was the way his fingers tapped idly on the wood, keeping a rhythm to his words even once they’d finished. When it became obvious that I had nothing else to comment, his voice brought me back to eyes that I was only now realizing were not brown, but a deep, honey-golden hazel.

“To be honest, the hardest part of interviewing for this job might just be finding someone who can be in a room with me for longer than ten minutes without wanting to strangle me.”

That had to be a joke, right? It felt too odd to laugh, so I did the next best thing I could think of.

“I don’t mean to brag, Professor Reid, but it’s been almost…” I paused, glancing up to find only an analog clock hung in the room. After some mental math that certainly wouldn’t be quick by his standards, I concluded, “... three minutes now and I’m feeling great.”

But I got the feeling he wasn’t joking at all when he said, “That means I still have _seven_ whole minutes to screw this up.”

I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore. I tried to cover my mouth, but it only made it worse. Luckily, he seemed to find the unfortunate snort and other muffled noises endearing.

“How could you screw it up?” I finally asked between the giggles I really should’ve been embarrassed about, “I’m the one being interviewed!”

I should’ve been worried, but I wasn’t. There was an undeniable docility to the man in front of me. It wasn’t innocence — I was well accustomed to what that looked like — it was something else. A strange, contradictory naïveté. A relatability to a man I was certain that I had very little in common with. Except for maybe his tendency to laugh when he was uncomfortable.

“Right, sorry, I forgot,” he said.

I had, too. In a matter of minutes, he’d already disproven and dismissed my worries of what he might be like. Even when he started to ask questions, I found myself being honest rather than self-congratulatory. My elevator pitch I’d practiced for ages never even came to mind.

The two of us just... talked. About work, our past, our plans. It didn’t feel like an interview. Or maybe it felt like what they were meant to feel like when the job was right for you.

_The job_ , I reminded as I found myself getting lost in those sweet treacle eyes yet again, _the_ _ **job**_ _is right for me_.

“Well, that’s all I have for you,” he concluded, succeeding in snapping me out of my rudely smitten monologue, “Is there anything else you can think of that you wanted to ask?”

I pondered the thought for a second, letting my eyes wander over the messy landscape around us before I was called back to the gentle ticking coming from the wall. I didn’t look up at it, instead opting to return my attention to him.

“What time is it?”

He didn’t even question it, although he did look down at his watch rather than at the clock on the wall when he answered, “Uhhh... 11:39.”

“Interesting.”

I said nothing else, offering him no explanation as I gathered my things and prepared my exit. He waited with narrowed eyes and a bitten bottom lip until, eventually, his curiosity got the better of him.

“What?”

In just that one syllable, I learned the information I had sought.

During the interview, I learned a lot about Dr. Reid. Most notably, he has a terrible habit of finding patterns even where there possibly are none. He recalls conversations over and over, long after they are done. His proficiency at puzzles is unmatched.

And he never, _ever_ forgets.

Turning to face him, I flashed the first genuine smile, free from any worry or doubt as I explained, “I made it thirty-nine minutes. And I’m still going strong.”

My smile wasn’t returned — not at first. Dr. Reid actually froze, his shoulders rounded as he leaned against the sturdy desk that seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright. But then it came, growing slowly over his cheeks as he realized the truth of what had just transpired over the last forty minutes.

A kinship. A knowing.

The recognition of a hummingbird that had finally found enough safety to rest its wings from their 3,000 beats per minute. Perched safely among the honeysuckles that held out against the morning frost for the few birds who’d waited until the last possible minute to migrate.

His cheeks looked rather like their necks, too, although the ruby red looked more flattering on him.

“Goodbye, Dr. Reid,” I laughed.

But before I even made it two steps closer to the door, he spoke.

“Wait, (y/n)—“

His chair caught the carpet, tipping back and only barely being caught by the clumsy man who’d stood too quickly. After the brief commotion that only seemed fitting, the two of us just stood there, soaking in the ambience and comfort of the familiarity felt before we would be forced to move on.

“Yes?”

“The job is yours.”

It wasn’t my fault that I froze, too. It didn’t feel real. It felt like a dream, like the romantic fantasies I’d been playing on loop since the first time I laid eyes on him. But regardless of fault, my life-altering levels of euphoria did not translate to the blank stare on my face.

The next time he spoke was quieter, shy and reserved as his hand tried to rub the flush from his neck.

“If you still want it,” he said.

My answer, although not explicitly stated, was clear in my response. 

“Really?!”

“That’d be… a really bad joke otherwise,” he chuckled.

I laughed, too, but I truthfully hadn’t even processed the joke. I was already too busy with my arms waving in the air as I both jumped closer to him and forced myself back.

“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much, Dr. Reid!”

To my surprise, he didn’t move. Even when my strange footwork brought me closer to him. Close enough that if I’d had even an ounce less restraint, I would have grabbed him. But I didn’t. I managed to force my hands back at my sides as I continued to shout, “Ah! Sorry! I know you don’t like hugs I’m just really excited!”

“It’s okay,” he answered with a smile I hadn’t seen from him yet, “I’m excited, too. I’ll drop off the paperwork at Human Resources later today. You can get it from them tomorrow.”

“I will! Thank you!”

I continued to bounce as I spoke, watching the way his eyes followed the motions, mimicking them in the only way that felt appropriate in the circumstances.

“We’ll see if you still feel that way once you have to listen to my lectures.”

“I can’t wait to listen to you talk! And for my job, no less!”

Unable to find any deception or doubt in my voice, Dr. Reid stopped trying to dissuade me. There was simply no talking me out of the job. He had trapped himself to me the second he said the word ‘ _yours_.’

_The job_ , I reminded myself as I caught the way he watched me even as I turned away, _The_ _ **job**_ _is yours_.

“I won’t let you down. I promise!”

“I know,” he answered, softly and sweetly as I ever could have imagined, “But you should go enjoy your freedom before I put you to work.”

Although he was probably just trying to get me to leave, it didn’t feel like it. In a way, it felt like he wanted me to stay, but knew that I shouldn’t. That I would fall in love with him too quickly if he’d let me. That I would drown in the nectar pooled in his palm, forgetting that winter was already on its way and I wasn’t prepared for the cold.

“Bye Dr. Reid!” I called with as little enthusiasm as possible. Because I was the bird here, right?

“Bye, (y/n).”

… Right?

——————————————————

There were many things I loved about returning to academia. The sureness of it all. The smell of old textbooks and coffee brewed in something more substantial than a rundown police station’s knock-off Keurig. Of course, the fact I didn’t have to be confronted with dead people or have guns pointed at me on a regular basis also certainly helped.

Despite the initial jump being outside of my control, the gradual move back to university seemed appropriate. I still worked extensively with the BAU, of course, they would always be my family. I’d just decided that I wouldn’t let my life be consumed by it anymore.

But I should have known. Addicts have a tendency to exchange one vice for another.

I heard squeaking first. The sound of silicone polymer caught between plastic, breaking through the static charge that clung to the ink and held the two of them together. Worded slightly differently, I heard a marker on a whiteboard. It didn’t seem as awful as it usually did, and I knew that the girl wielding the marker was responsible for that.

“Wow. Showing up early on the first day. Some people might call you a teacher’s pet for that.”

She spun on her heels, and I watched as her smile blossomed across her face at a significantly slower speed. By the time she had focused on me, though, it was in full bloom.

“At least this time I have an excuse. I can finally tell them it’s my job.”

I joined her on the stage, and with every step I felt the nerves usually associated with the first day quickly melting away. Just like before, I was caught in a web of a juvenile giddiness that I had no desire to wriggle free from.

“I can do the rest. It just won’t look as nice next to your writing,” I tried to assure her, but she snatched the marker from my hand just as I’d picked it up.

“No worries! I’m almost done.”

She seemed so confident in her actions that I couldn’t argue with her even if I’d tried. I wouldn’t dare disturb the routine she’d so clearly set herself in. But even beyond that determination, I saw something else shared between the two of us.

“You look nervous.”

She pondered the thought for a minute, but then settled on a tiny giggle and an even smaller voice.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I feel like I’m back to my very first day of undergrad.”

“Why were you nervous? I bet you did a great job.”

It was a sort of hypocritical question. After all, I’d been horribly nervous for weeks leading up to my first day of college. Granted, I was twelve and rode there on a bicycle, but I knew things weren’t like that for her, and truthfully, I couldn’t find any reason why she might’ve ever doubted herself. She was beautiful, clever, and seemed at least somewhat familiar with the traditional social rules.

All that left was the one thing I’d been trying to ignore. The creeping that feeling I got whenever I laid eyes upon her that something was different about this girl. Not that other women were flawed, but that she was just so… flawless.

“There you go laying on the praise again,” she sighed, and for a second I wondered if she might’ve actually read my mind, “If you keep doing that, I might start to believe you.”

I wished she would.

“You should. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t exceptionally bright.”

Because as much as I did find her stunning and intriguing, that wasn’t what drew me to her. Her grades weren’t perfect, but then again, neither were mine. We each have those things that we’re so stubborn about that we’ll sacrifice perfection for them.

I wanted to find hers. I wanted to break down how she saw the world. Not just because of my normal, morbid curiosity, but because I wanted a glance into her universe. I wanted to find a way to fit inside of it, even if it was just to maintain my proximity to her.

Just then, she looked up at me, undoubtedly spotting the way my eyes were stuck to her the same way the polymer clung to the static of the whiteboard.

“Well, I guess I should go sit down,” she mumbled through a smile she tried to keep hidden.

“So I’m free to cold call you, then, right?” I joked as she started to stumble back, trying to find her feet the same way I tried to find any sense left in my thick skull.

“Don’t you dare!” she laughed, and I was reminded of just how much I loved the sound.

I would miss it deeply for the next hour and a half. But each time I did, I was lucky enough to be able to look up just a little bit higher to see her seated at the back of the room. Sure enough, just as she’s warned me, she never failed to be looking back, enraptured by the words I could barely hear myself saying. But I would keep talking forever if that’s what it meant.

I realized then how utterly lost I was. How stupidly stuck I was in her sticky silk web, ready and waiting to be devoured by the cruel mistress of fate if it meant that _she_ would be the last thing I saw.

Once the class ended, she found her way to the front of the room only to find that a number of students had already piled in front of me. Among them were a number of girls I’d recognized. I still wasn’t particularly used to their strange behavior around me. Derek insisted that my avoidance of their undesired affections would only make it worse, but I normally felt hopeless that there was any way to dispose of them. Then again, it usually wasn’t long before they got bored or frustrated by the constant rambling and disposed of themselves.

I’d ignore the fact that Derek gave me that same advice, only because it was very rude the way he told me I simply needed to ‘ _be myself_.’

(Y/n) didn’t seem to mind who I was. Not only did she wait patiently for a chance to talk to me, but she also eagerly listened along to all of the answers provided to the others. It must’ve been boring for her, having already taken and excelled in a similar course, but there she was — staring with large doe eyes and a dopey smile that made my heart skip two beats at a time.

But, as it always seemed to work out, by the time she got to me, all she had to say was, “I’ve got to run, but I’ll see you Thursday, right? In your office?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

_And every second until then, as you will continue to haunt my dreams both waking and asleep_.

“Thanks, Professor Reid,” she said, and I wondered if I would ever get used to hearing her say even just my last name, “It was great to enjoy class again for a change.”

As I watched her skip away from me, I was reminded of a promise I made to myself when I made the decision to transition away from full-time at the BAU.

I would make a point to focus on more beautiful things.

I guess I accomplished as much. There was no denying that she fit the bill perfectly. But if she were to be my muse, the thing that kept me clinging to rose tinted lenses of a bitter world, there were a number of problems that I needed to address.

Most notably, I needed to figure out a way to exist around her without poisoning the ground beneath her feet. To find a way to have her walk beside me without tainting the air she breathed and blocking the sun from reaching her.

I had to find a way to be absolutely certain that I could _never_ hurt her.

I had already seen enough flowers trampled by the unfortunate desires of men. If I were to be the one to pull her roots from the wildflower fields, I would love her back to life. I would cherish her until she grew large enough to break free from the ceramic that held her. Then I would let her choose where to blossom anew. Though, I would pray that she would stay with me.

It was a problem for another day, I supposed, trying to make my way back to the office that would feel emptier without her company. I didn’t understand how it could be that she’d only spent an hour in the space, but it still rang with echoes of her laughter that had sunk into walls.

Then I heard voices — female voices that were obviously not the one I wanted to hear most. They were obviously outside my office, staking out what was meant to be my personal space. I could already gather what kind of girls they would be from that alone, but they confirmed my suspicions almost immediately.

“(Y/n)? Yeah, right. He would never be interested in someone like _her_.”

I didn’t think it was a stretch to assume this was about me, although I found them rather foolish for having such a blatantly disrespectful conversation where I was destined to discover it. But as the conversation continued, I got the sinking feeling that I was always meant to hear it. 

“I don’t know, she’s so goddamn pretty,” said the girl with the most sense out of them (or at least a working set of eyes).

“Are you joking? It doesn’t matter,” the first girl sneered, the jealousy evident in each screeched syllable. That wasn’t the surprising or groundbreaking contribution, though. That honor was reserved for the next words out of her mouth.

“He’s a grown ass man,” she said, “He does not want some 25-year-old _virgin_.”

With a sharp inhale of breath, my lungs ceased any function. My mind began to race almost immediately, running through the odds that these were just the musings of envy. That it was all a lie, a rumor intended to humiliate a sweet girl. As if chastity were some terrible thing to have. I was certain she believed that, but she would be wrong.

“Oh shit, she’s a virgin? Where’d you hear that?”

“Seriously?” she snickered, “It’s on her _dating profile_. Everyone knows. It’s pathetic.”

Of all the words I would use to describe this revelation, ‘ _pathetic_ ’ didn’t come close to any of them. If I had to select a few, they would be _thrilling_ , _captivating_ , and overwhelmingly _alluring_. My face had already flushed and my heart was pounding with an indescribable insistence.

I turned, trying to duck into the closest bathroom in the opposite direction as fast as possible, but even then I heard her voice ring through the hall again as she sang, “He needs a girl who _already_ knows how to please a man.”

The concept was lost on me. I simply couldn’t imagine a world where she was anything close to disappointing. It seemed downright ridiculous. Just the _thought_ of her drove me wild. I’d never touched her, but I knew it would be my undoing. I could almost feel shaky hands sliding over my shoulders as she tried to seat herself on my lap. I could see the way she would look up at me, coquettish and daring and so _fucking_ breathtaking. With a bitten lip that would fall open to make room for a whimper when my hand slid up her skirt.

_Fuck_.

My hands covered my face, but they really should have covered the incredibly inopportune erection that had formed as a result of my little daydream. It was for the best, though, I suppose, considering how hard it was to keep my hands off myself when it came to thoughts of her.

And now those thoughts were further distorted with the knowledge of her innocence. But it made perfect sense. Of course she was innocent. I’d seen it in her eyes the moment I met her. I saw it in the way her hands never knew where to be and her laughter was ragged and imperfect. Because she was unapologetically her; never having been forged through the fire or cut from the stone.

The harder I tried not to think about it, the harder it became to avoid the thoughts. The more impossible it seemed to not picture the soft skin of her legs, untouched like tender petals ready to be plucked from their sepal and crushed between eager but naive fingers. I thought of how she would leave her fragrance on any man who touched her too hard; how easily she could give away parts of herself without knowing that they would never come back.

I thought of myself as a child, wandering through the desert landscape of Las Vegas to find the few flowers that refused to burn in the unwavering heat. I thought of how I would spot the splash of gold among sage green and beige. I thought hard enough that I could almost feel the yellow bells wrapped around my fingers once again.

I thought of how I would try to separate each petal, pressing until the resistance was too much. Holding them so hard that they would tear and bleed clear blood. I thought of how I would leave them with one petal less.

I was a foolish, covetous boy then, and I was coming to find that not much had changed. Except now I wasn’t stealing from desert shrubs.

No, this time, I wanted to take something much worse.

I really shouldn’t have been thinking about this. Not when she is so blissfully unaware. Not when she was so brilliantly pure. It wasn’t her burden to bear. It wasn’t her fault that I wanted her badly enough to make flowers weep.

But I did. Oh, how I did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer and Reader are forced to remember that the world is not only made up of the two of them.

Every year I eagerly waited for the first day when the weather dipped below 65. There was just something about the way the air nipped at your skin and tickled your lungs, urging you to find something soft and warm to wrap yourself in.

This year, I had a few ideas of what to start with. Or rather, who. Although, judging by the quiet, almost imperceptible chatter of her teeth, she was anything but warm.

“You do have the forecast available to you, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she laughed, clenching her jaw and turning to me like the stillness would prove that the wind whipping between her bare legs didn’t burn.

“How are you not freezing?”

But to my surprise, she didn’t deny it.

“Oh, I absolutely am,” she said. I waited for some kind of explanation, but she gave me nothing but a smile that further stoked the fire inside me.

“Why? Why torture yourself?”

“The things we do for beauty, Professor,” she sighed, waving me off despite stepping closer, “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Yeah, right. Sure.”

I knew, or at least hoped, that it was a cry for help. A desperate attempt to share my body heat that was growing exponentially higher with every second I heard her voice. I wondered if she knew just how much my body burned for her. How I wished I could bring her into the warmth of my embrace, bringing my skin and lips to hers until the heat broke through.

But I couldn’t think about it too hard when she was right there, watching me from the corner of her eyes with something resembling shyness.

There were many things I wanted to do. I wanted to offer her the safety from the cold; to wrap her in my arms and protect her from the whistling wind and the eyes of others. I wanted to keep her close against me, and I would hope that eventually we would graft and grow together like the dogwood trees that had already long ago rid themselves of their blooms for the fall.

I couldn’t put my arms around her, but nothing was stopping me from giving her my scarf. As I came to a stop on the side of a busy walkway, she followed suit, watching me with the same curious eyes that drew me to her in the first place.

“What are you doing?”

My answer came before my explanation. I looped the fabric around her, pulling her just one step closer to me in the process. I hoped she wouldn’t notice, but I saw the way she bit her lip and averted her eyes.

I didn’t let that dissuade me, though. I continued to wrap the long cotton accessory over her shoulders, deeply enjoying the way the fabric covered her lips. I reminded myself that it was silly to be jealous of a scarf, but I felt it, nonetheless. I longed to be the thing pressed against chapped lips so I could feel the way they trembled.

“I am ruining your fashion sense and lending you some actual sense,” I finally replied once I was able to see the fruits of my labor.

“It’s so warm!” she mumbled, holding the scarf closer to her face. My heart nearly stopped as I saw her chest puff, knowing that she was breathing in the scent of my cologne. I could almost feel her hands holding me, but I knew deep down it was nothing but a cruel, sadistic fantasy created by a touch starved mind.

“It’s important to keep your neck warm. Traditional Chinese medicine viewed the back of the neck as the most susceptible place for wind cold invasion, which they claimed to be responsible for many ailments.”

We really should have gotten going. I shouldn’t have kept her out in the elements. But I was so thrilled by the sight of her swaddled in my clothing that I couldn’t risk her removing it so soon. Growing closer still, I reached out a shaky hand to press two fingers against the scarf that rested over the back of her neck.

It was the closest to touching her I trusted myself to do.

“Essentially, they credited this area here as being where illness entered our bodies. Which, some argue may actually have some truth to it, due to sensors located in the area that instruct the body to regulate heat.”

I could feel her body shake with giggles as she said, “I think you just wanted to see me drown in fabric.”

“Yes,” I admitted freely, “that is definitely a benefit.”

“I probably look like your _daughter_ ,” she whined. It was the first time I thought about the fact that other people could see us. That they would undoubtedly notice the blatant affection I showered her with. But no one looked, and my secret remained tucked under cotton wrapped around her.

“I happen to think that you look adorable,” I appealed.

She took the compliment poorly, with her jaw dropping open as she playfully shoved me away.

“You’re making it worse!” she squeaked, her voice cracking at the end of the sentence in the most juvenile way. I could barely hear it over the sound of my own laughter, but my mind clung to her so securely that my mind memorized it perfectly.

And fortunately, that attention extended past sound. Just as she stumbled back, I saw someone with their head tucked down and buried in their phone as they passed by. I took in nothing about the stranger, but every projected image of what would happen if the two of them collided.

I didn’t stop my arms from holding her then. I wrapped a possessive arm around her waist, pulling her straight into my chest. A controlled collision of our hearts pressed against one another.

“Sorry!” I shouted to the passerby who also noticed the almost-disaster.

It was then, in that moment, that I realized that the stranger was anything but strange.

“Oh,” I muttered as the brown-eyed blonde finally met my eyes, “Max.”

“Spencer…” she returned before the silence settled between us.

I noticed the way her eyes landed on the woman who remained crushed in my embrace. I released her, begrudgingly but with enough force that it felt like a rejection.

“I heard you worked here now,” Max continued, as if she’d been waiting for me to remove the girl between us.

“Yeah, I do. Why are you here?”

She was clearly offended, or at least confused by the bluntness of the question. I couldn’t fault her for that; it resembled a demand more than a genuine interest in her answer.

“Um... work,” she said without further explanation.

“You work here?”

I was no stranger to self-loathing. It was a rare day where I didn’t experience a crushing blow from it at least three times before I lifted my head from my pillow. But I never hated myself more than in that moment. Because I could feel the way my body was turning away from (y/n), trying to remove her from this encounter as much as I could.

It wasn’t that I wanted to hide her; I was the one who wanted to hide.

But Max was too perceptive, too aware of my methods to follow suit. Throughout the brief conversation, she’d continued to glance at the poor girl to my side. Each time, her eyes lingered longer on the familiar fabric she was swathed in.

“No. We’re advertising our program here,” Max told me while watching her. Implicitly dismissing me and turning her full attention to the girl raising her hand in an awkward wave that was answered with a curt, “Sorry, who are you?”

Before she could answer the question, I cut in again, trying to save her from falling into the trap that was this entire conversation.

“This is (y/n).” 

“That’s nice.” She still hadn’t looked away from the girl, trapping her in a confrontation that she never asked to be in. “Are you his…” once again, she scanned the sight of a girl obviously _at least_ ten years her junior before sarcastically drawling, “… _student_?”

That time when I answered, it wasn’t only to defend myself from the impropriety she was implying. Truthfully, I didn’t care if she thought the two of us were together. Let her be upset about the fact that I’m interested in someone else — she’d left me months ago, and our relationship had barely gotten anywhere in the first place.

I answered her question because I was _terrified_ that (y/n) would say something that would break my heart. That her denial of the implication would be too sincere, too filled with disgust and entertainment, for my heart to bear.

“She’s a graduate student, yeah, but she’s also my TA.”

“I see...”

(Y/n) just nodded along, clearly having picked up on the tension and disdain swirling around her like she was the eye of a hurricane. If she could stay right there, she would be free from the destruction.

But, of course, Max couldn’t let her go unscathed. Scorned lovers rarely did.

“Good luck with that,” she said with raised eyebrows and a brilliantly fake, forced smile. 

To my surprise, I heard the other girl chime in, happily and with a confidence I’d never seen from her before.

“Thanks,” she sweetly replied, sounding like sunshine and spring blooms unbothered by the autumn frost.

“You’ll need it,” Max tried again, only to be shut down with an even cheerier, “Consider me properly warned.”

It was just kind enough that there was no room left. No point in arguing with someone whose mind was already made up. That was what she was saying — challenging my ex-girlfriend to try to talk her out of her fondness for me.

The thought made my heart flutter. That she would be so sure that I wouldn’t hurt her. I ignored the dark voice in the back of my mind, screaming that she was wrong. That I would consume her like a black hole and leave no trace of her in the aftermath.

She didn’t hear that voice bleeding through in my body language, but Max did. Max saw the seeds of self-hatred and insecurity and decided that it would be enough.

“Anyway, I’m gonna go,” she said with a knowingly smile, “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” (y/n) responded, holding her smile until it was just the two of us again.

The laughter and comfort of the moment we’d shared had long passed. I almost expected her to remove my scarf, to hand the limp fabric back to me and rid herself of me in the same way.

But she didn’t. With wide, innocent eyes, she looked up at me as she pulled it even closer to her face. I couldn’t see her lips, but I knew that she was smiling differently, then.

“We should... go to my office,” I announced.

She nodded back but said nothing else. She just continued to watch me and follow me like I laid the path specifically for her. Which, I did. She didn’t even need to look forward, now armed with the knowledge that I would catch her before I ever let her fall.

I recalled the way it felt for that brief moment, to hold her close and feel her breath against my neck. The way her body surrendered to me immediately, her back arching away from my hand so our hips could meet, instead.

Then I remembered the warning that Max had chosen, and my brain immediately latched onto a quote from the fourteenth Dalai Lama himself.

‘ _Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck_.’

I couldn’t be sure that (y/n) wanted me as badly as I wanted her. But if she did, we would need a lot more than luck if we hoped to survive the supernova.

——————————————————

Over the past few weeks, I had found myself coming to a number of uncomfortable realizations. The first of which was realizing that the sprightly man that I’d recently been hired by was fifteen years my elder. I couldn’t say that it didn’t make sense — he certainly had accomplished more than most people his age — but it didn’t stop me from thinking about how he’d already graduated college by the time I was born. And again, sure, that was odd for a fifteen-year-old boy, but it didn’t make it any less strange to think about. 

The second uncomfortable realization was that he clearly viewed me as a peer. The age gap rarely seemed to bother him when it came to work. He spared no criticism of my writing, but still managed to provide it in a way that didn’t make me feel like crying. When he told me that he respected the effort I’d put in to make it this far, it didn’t feel condescending. I felt more like a grown up than I think I’d ever felt before. It was, in a word, terrifying.

The third uncomfortable realization happened that morning, as I stared down a woman who was also obviously older than me and filled to the brim with spite. I realized then that Spencer wasn’t only a brilliant academic and forty-year-old man — he was a man with a past that did, in fact, involve other women.

Of course, I didn’t expect him to be completely chaste. He was too charming for me to believe that. But maybe that only made the moment more harrowing. Because there I was, looking at someone who had lived my dreams and come out on the other side with resentment and bitterness.

I saw how genuine she felt. How she tried not to ruin the morning, and how she’d meant to warn me not because she was jealous, but because she really felt like it was necessary. Realistically, I knew that I couldn’t see that look in her eyes and write off what I’d seen. Eventually, I would hear her voice in my head whispering, ‘ _I told you so, I told you so_.’

But that didn’t stop me from preemptively trying to prove her wrong.

“So... Max seems nice.”

“Yeah, she is.”

Despite the obviously dismissive and dejected answer, my jealousy and curiosity continued to rage through me like a drought ridden brush.

“Who is she?”

Spencer paused, turning to me with his mouth hung open and his chords strained with a scratchy, incoherent noise.

“Uh... she, uh...”

I think he wanted me to take it back, to save him from uttering the words lodged in his throat and clawing their way to the surface. But I wanted to hear them, even if they were soaked in blood and regret. Especially if they were.

When the words fell from his lips, though, they were flat. Resigned. Apathetic.

“She’s my ex-girlfriend,” he said in the same tone as if he were talking about his hairdresser.

“Oh.”

His lips pressed into a flat line that still tried to curve into a smile. He couldn’t keep it up the same way that he couldn’t meet my eyes. He looked back down at the papers scattered on his desk, but he barely moved them.

“She’s very pretty.”

I heard myself say it, but I couldn’t tell you why I had. Maybe it was just the bitter young girl in me trying to force her way through. Maybe it was my attempt at empathy, my sharing in his unfortunate mourning for a lost love.

Maybe I just wanted to see how he’d respond.

Spencer’s eyes found me, then. They scanned every inch of me as I remained awkwardly standing at his door, as if I was waiting for him to tell me to leave. I could feel him scrutinizing the envy in my tone and the tension in my hands. I almost expected him to take amusement in it, but he didn’t. Not for long, at least. It’s like he had something he wanted to say about me, but decided it was better off left unsaid.

“Yeah, she is,” he said in the same sullen voice.

It sounded like an invitation for me to sit, so I did. The ornate plush chair felt more comfortable now that I knew I had a place here. Still, the feeling was dampened by the thought of someone else. Another woman who’d probably sat in the same seat. Who had, at one point, probably looked at him the same smitten way I was then.

“I take it things didn’t end very well?”

I couldn’t think of any reason that would have justified me leaving him when he still talked about me in that tone. Then again, I guess I was just idealizing him. It very well could’ve been his fault. Judging by the way he was acting and the bitterness that tainted the earlier conversation with her, it was honestly more likely his fault.

But I couldn’t help but feel the way I did. That he seemed too good to be true, and that I hoped to god that I was right.

Spencer must have seen the hope in my eyes, because he chuckled as he responded, “Not really. They rarely do with me.”

An implicit admission that he, too, made mistakes. No matter how badly I wished it weren’t true. But, as Spencer Reid would soon learn about me, my spirits are not easily squashed.

“Well, maybe it’s just because you haven’t met the right person,” I chimed back, raising a finger in a lecture-like manner, “I’ve heard love’s easy when you find the one.”

My confidence rested entirely on him believing that I had any kind of authority when it came to love. If the amused grin he had sprouted was any indication, however, I had already lost.

“But I also think there’s gotta be more than one ‘ _the one_ ,’ right? I mean, the statistical probability of finding one person has to be infinitesimal,” I chuckled before shrinking back into the chair. The sunlight filtering through the window felt like the worst kind of spotlight, and I just kept rambling like the thoughts could take me anywhere but here.

“Maybe that’s part of the algorithm fate uses?” I asked, but then immediately cringed at the sound of the words on my tongue, “Oh, gosh, I’m describing it like a computer... I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I like listening to your theories on fate,” he paused, his eyes trailing down to spot bouncing legs and fiddling fingers before he finished softer, “And love.”

Hearing him say the word did more for me than I’d like to admit. How could it not, when whispered that way? Vulnerable and vying for recognition and reciprocity. I wanted to thank him, but my tongue felt like it’d woven itself into knots the longer I imagine how many other ways Spencer might say the word ‘ _love_.’

But in his characteristic way, he combatted my thoughts with a semi-sarcastic quip.

“You’re much more optimistic than I am. You almost make me want to hope again.” 

He might as well have called me naive. He had, in so many words. I couldn’t sulk on it for too long. We both knew he was already well aware from my poorly worded inspirational spiel that I was anything but experienced.

Fueled by all of my insecurities and awkwardness, I shrugged as I loudly announced, “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never even _had_ a boyfriend!”

“You will,” he said it with a little sort of laugh, as if what I’d said was a joke. The sound continued as he glanced up at me with high arched eyebrows and a smile so genuine and playful that it built butterflies in my stomach. The fluttering wings only got worse as he whispered with careful enunciation, “ _Trust me_.”

I wanted to. I wanted to believe him because he was smarter, older, and more experienced than me in every conceivable way. But most of all, I wanted to believe him because I wanted him to have heard the beg buried beneath my words.

_Love me, love me, love me_.

“I think I know something that’ll cheer you up,” was what I said, instead.

Spencer perked up at the words, a childlike curiosity following my movements as I pulled my laptop from my bag. He didn’t join me on my side of his desk, and I tried to remind myself that it was probably best if I avoided being too close to him.

Once I had pulled up the website I was looking for (and triple checked that my text notifications would not be displayed on the screen), I turned the device around in my lap to show him the page.

“Tadah!”

With narrowed eyes and tongue stuck halfway between his teeth, he finally gave up trying to decipher the colorful page and settled with asking, “What’s this?”

“It’s a website where people can rate their professors… and you have a page!”

Spencer cringed, his entire body leaning back and away from the offensive idea.

“I’m not sure I want to know what people have to say about me...”

The visceral reaction was understandable, but he had nothing to worry about. I’d already read a number of them before I even applied to be his assistant, and all of the negative ones were clearly written by scorned young girls who’d dealt with spurned advances and know-it-all boys who weren’t accustomed to not being bluntly reminded that they were not the smartest person in the room.

“Don’t worry, I’ll vet them!”

His distrust in my assurances was blatant. Even when I’d started talking, reading off the most innocuous of reviews, Spencer’s body remained tense throughout the entire ordeal. When he did leave the place behind his desk, he only did it so that he could start pacing around the room.

It wouldn’t have bothered me if he didn’t make a habit of walking behind me, forcing me to look over my shoulder to gauge his responses. I also was starting to get the feeling that he was trying to see the screen - to gain access to the same words he’d wanted to avoid in the first place. Morbid curiosity, I supposed.

“Dr. Reid is remarkable in every sense of the word,” I read aloud, feeling his eyes through the hairs rising on the back of my neck, “he is kind, knowledgeable, and always willing to talk you through a problem.”

I heard the distinct sound of wood against short fiber carpet, the gentle scratching of a chair being pulled up next to me.

“If the man has any flaw, it would be that he doesn’t shake hands…”

I hadn’t finished reading the words, letting them tumble off my tongue without any thought. I was too distracted by the sight of him in my peripherals, practically bumping our chairs together before taking a seat next to me.

“… which is fine, really, because that’s not where I— Ah! Sorry! Next review!”

“What does it say?”

_Because that’s not where I want his hands to touch me, anyway_.

“Nothing!” I shrieked, turning to find that his face was mere inches away from mine. He hadn’t even tried to take a glance at the screen to prove me wrong; dark amber eyes burned straight through me, leaving me nothing but a leaf clinging to the last semblance of hope against a bitter autumn wind.

But then, just like that, they were gone. Just as he finally turned back to the screen, I had the wherewithal to frantically scroll back to the top of the page, ridding us both of the awkwardness that the rest of that particular review would bring. Unfortunately, that also made a feature on the site very prominent.

“What’s that symbol?” he asked, reaching out to point to the small chili pepper beside his star rating.

“It’s the hotness symbol.”

“ _Hotness_?” he repeated with a chuckle. His entertainment in the colloquial slang should have felt condescending, but it made my heart skip a beat and nearly come to a stop.

“Yeah, you mark down whether or not you find the professor— uh.”

I’d done it again; I’d spoken without thinking it all the way through. I thought of all the ways I could have ended the sentence, and that was a mistake, too. Because Spencer Reid was, above all else, a profiler. He’d admitted it to me himself that he loved to pick people apart. Even the most inane decision spoke volumes about our inner secrets, personalities, desires.

One day, I hoped that he would tell me why the only way I could think to say at the time to describe the concept of attractiveness was, “A-Aesthetically pleasing.”

I think it caught him off guard, too. His face scrunched up in the most adorable smile that he tried to hide behind his hand propped up on the relatively small barrier between us.

“Oh,” he replied.

But I got this feeling that he was waiting for a punchline that was never going to come. Like I was trying to pull a fast one on him by pretending that his current and former students found him attractive enough to admit it on the internet, even with potential identifying information. As if the girls in his current class weren’t blatantly doing it to his face. He had to notice that, right? 

“Yeah, you got it which means more students marked it than didn’t.”

And I watched as the tension finally dropped from his shoulders as he realized that it wasn’t a joke. That he wasn’t the punchline he’d made himself out to be in his head. That it wasn’t just me, being foolish and idealizing him because of our close proximity and power dynamic. That Spencer Reid was, according to myself and others, _aesthetically pleasing_.

“... Oh.”

“I admit I actually skipped some of the more inappropriate reviews,” I chuckled, hoping to lighten the mood from the strange, dissipating aura of insecurity that we’d found ourselves in.

Unfortunately for me, though, Spencer wasn’t looking to lighten the mood. He wanted to set it completely aflame.

Sliding his arm closest to me over the back of my seat, he leaned closer. He was still too far for me to feel him, but I knew he was there. I felt his presence on my skin even from what felt like miles away.

“Inappropriate?”

My heart was in my throat, speaking for me again, even though it hadn’t worked out well for me for the past hour. The words, too, were mixed with an awkward, nervous laughter that poorly covered how flustered I was.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of the younger girls have you marked as ‘ _sexiest in the school,_ ’ which seems ridiculous.”

“Why is that ridiculous?”

His challenge had come before I’d even finished the word. It had been a poor choice of words, borne from self-preservation that was still failing.

The hand that had been propped up between us dropped from his chin. It dangled over just a few inches above my thighs, which tensed together at the mere thought of being touched. It wasn’t a bad tension.

Spencer noticed. I knew he did because I saw the way his lip twitched for a nanosecond into an arrogant little smirk that had no business being that attractive. I understood where the confidence came from as soon as he started to speak again, low in volume and tone and still growing ever closer.

“Teacher-student fantasies are actually one of the most common. A study found that fifty percent of adult students had fantasized about having sex with their Professor, and nearly fourteen percent admitted to actually having performed some sexual act.”

I didn’t react because I couldn’t. I felt my hummingbird heart sparking to life within me, telling me to do as hummingbirds do and rip free from the feathers that he held me by so I could get away.

All he was doing was talking, but I felt him inside of me. I felt his hands on my skin even though they had never been there before. His lips that were making such wonderful, sinful words might as well have been touching me, too.

“Even more interesting,” he paused, licking his lips and drawing out the words that he clearly found most valuable to me, “more than _eighty percent_ of those that had acted on their desires said that they didn’t regret doing so.”

The numbers meant nothing to me. I didn’t care how other people felt, because I already felt my own burning skin and trembling muscles. Spencer already had a grip on my heart that ached with exhaustion from being forced to its limit.

“Wow, I... did not know that. But it makes sense.” I swallowed, trying to compose myself in any way I could but failing miserably. As I lifted my hand to close the laptop, I realized how obviously I was shaking. “It’s just... you aren’t... you know?”

“I’m not what?” he whispered, waiting until I looked him in the eye before he lifted his eyebrows to indicate he was still waiting for my answer.

“You aren’t like... that, with me.”

“Should I be?”

He was answering too fast, too confident for me to keep up.

“What?”

I hadn’t really wanted him to answer that question, either, because I knew what he was asking. Even worse, I knew that he already knew my answer. He didn’t need to clarify because my understanding was written in my eyes that were still opened wide before him.

“Do I treat you differently?”

It wasn’t a fair question, though. Differently from whom? I had no control group, no comparison. Before the awkwardness that happened earlier, the only person I’d ever cared to analyze his interactions with was myself. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure about those, either.

“I-I don’t know,” I admitted, not realizing that I’d spoken the words out loud until he leaned away from me. I saw something similar to a familiar anxiety and insecurity flash through his eyes before fading back behind sticky treacle walls.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“You don’t,” I answered immediately, but he had already made up his mind.

He was practically bolting away from me, standing from the chair and dragging it back to its rightful place on the other side of the room before finally sighing, “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

And despite the sad sound, I could tell that he was relieved. I wondered if it had more to do with my poor assurance or the distance that he’d placed between us.

“Professor—“ I started, unsure of what I was even about to say. Luckily, I wouldn’t have to figure it out. Just as Spencer had turned to look at me, my phone started chiming.

The both of us pulled out our phones, but he found his empty. Mine, on the other hand, was alerting me to just how late I was about to be for my class half a mile away.

“Oh! Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize what time it was!” I yelled, frantically shoving all of my things back into the bag that always seemed too small to carry everything. Feeling his eyes were still on me, I glanced up at him with a sweeping gesture as I vaguely apologized, “Sorry if I bored you with all of this.”

“You’re never a bore,” he said, simply and without reservation.

“I hope it helped cheer you up, at least,” I responded through a nervous laugh.

As if to correct me, he smiled as he whispered, “You did.”

I noticed the distinction but said nothing. As usual, I didn’t really need to. He’d already spotted the way my cheeks pinched in half-grin and the tremors in my body calmed at his command.

In that slightly unsettling way, Spencer’s handle on my heart strained the closer I got to leaving him. By the time I managed to give any sort of goodbye, it had all but torn the organ in two.

“Have a nice class,” he said in a way that I wished had sounded even a little bit like, ‘ _Please don’t leave_.’

But it didn’t. In fact, it sounded exactly like the opposite.

——————————————————

Even the coldest water couldn’t rid me of thoughts of her. Even as I stared at damp ringlet curls framing a face I barely recognized, I felt nothing but a crushing, devastating need for her. The thought sounded so crude, but I knew it ran deeper than sexual desire.

Lust could be discarded off so quickly. If I cared less for her, if I didn’t have to see her again, I could dispose of any urges in one night. I could easily strip her of the thing I found most alluring.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

How easy it would be, to tell this young girl to bare herself to me. She wouldn’t question it. She was dying for me to do it. She’d all but dared me to.

_She’s twenty-five._

Because she doesn’t know any better. She sees me and sees a good man, unwilling or unable to look past the jester’s mask to see the devil beneath it. The creature rooted in my chest that wanted to break free and devour her whole.

_She’s a fucking_ _ **virgin**_.

That’s why I wanted her.

_Leave her alone_.

That’s why I couldn’t have her.

_Let her be pure._

God had no mercy for a man like me. Just as I’d sequestered myself in a stall, trying to decide just how close to rock bottom I’d truly come, I heard the door to the bathroom swing open.

“(Y/n)?”

I heard her name on another man’s tongue, and my heart began beating twice as hard, concocting a frankly ludicrous universe where she’d faked an excuse to get away from me in order to pursue another. But it became very clear, very quickly that he wasn’t speaking to her.

“Professor Reid’s TA? Nah, there’s no way they aren’t fucking. Look at her.”

A laughable conclusion, but one that felt better than most of the alternatives. For me, anyway. But while pride filled my chest, a heavier guilt swiftly overpowered it. They could accuse me of impropriety, especially when I know that they’re wrong, but to accuse her of such a thing...

“You kidding? Dude’s a fucking simp and she’s a prude. Their foreplay would probably be reading Aristotle or some shit.”

The unrecognizable assumed insult aside, I had to laugh at how telling it was that these young boys tried to think of something intellectual and compelling, only to stop at Aristotle. Unable to think of anything more fitting. Or in the very least, more romantic.

But, as I would soon be reminded, romance wasn’t on their minds.

“Well shit, I could show her a good time.”

A tension shot from my heart to my fist before the words were even fully processed. My knuckles were blanched white, stretched over bones that ached to make contact with something, anything, to make the noise stop.

It didn’t. It got worse.

“I bet I could get her to fuck me,” the same voice continued.

I recognized it. He was one of the few in my class that I’d immediately picked from the crowd as exactly the type of boy I’d never cared for. The kind that was used to getting what they wanted. The kind that would take and use and throw away.

“No way man, she isn’t gonna save it that long just to lose it to you.”

The words weren’t directed at me, but they tore through me, nonetheless. Because I knew that no matter how much I hated this boy for wanting her, I had done the very same thing. I’d claimed her in my mind with a childish greed.

But it wasn’t the same. I would never treat her like they would. As an object. A game. An inconsequential chip thrown into the pot when dealt a dry board and a bad beat.

As if on cue, his friend spoke again. 

“Wanna bet?” he challenged with a chuckle. As if it were a joke.

He didn’t see it that way. When he answered, he did so with a firmness and an arrogance that brought my blood to a boil.

“Yeah,” he said, “I think I do.”

I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands, disgusted by the light that still managed to make it past my eyelids. There was no room for anything soft or good in my mind. It was filled with fury and obsession and other regrettable things.

This was no different than what happened to every other girl who held onto her innocence. All others beyond the lucky few who manage to find a way to make it not hurt. But it coated all of my thoughts with bloodthirsty rage, and the iron liquid seeped through into thoughts of her.

I wasn’t angry because he wanted to toy with her. I was angry because I wanted her to be _**mine**_.

Mine to hold and mine to play, carefully like a porcelain marionette or a lyre. To guide her with calloused hands that were only careful when handling beautiful things like her. Mine to snap like strings and shatter like ceramic.

Mine to break and set ablaze. To burn, to turn to ashes that I would spread in a cross on my forehead in the hope of coming closer to God. Because if she was sent from the heavens the way it seemed she was, then God must have known that the devil would want her. He couldn’t give her wings and expect me not to want to tear away the feathers. To weave them and wear them as a crown, presented as a reminder to myself that innocence is non-transferable, and that any attempts will leave both my hands and a desecrated angel covered in blood.

But I would still want her even if she was stripped of her wings. I did not only want her for her feathers. I just wasn’t entirely sure of the other reasons yet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader earns her nickname, and Spencer sinks to a new level of sin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Drinking, alcohol, masturbation (male)

If I had to pick my favorite thing about working for Spencer Reid, it would probably be something that most people wouldn’t expect. Sure, it was nice to be able to work with a human encyclopedia, and he was definitely very nice to look at, but neither of those things contributed to my love for my job.

It was the sense of belonging. An overwhelming feeling of serenity that existed, flowing freely beneath the surface like a network of roots twined together. I never felt out of place when I was with Spencer — which couldn’t be said for basically any other time. Especially not now.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because it’s just absurd. You harass your neighbors while dressed in a costume and they reward you with something sweet (or, in some cases, change). As I’ve grown older, not much has changed aside from the creativity and length of the costumes.

... and the sweet treats being replaced by the bitter sting of alcohol.

“You do realize that guy was hitting on you in there, right?” my friend shouted from less than a foot to my right.

“He was just being nice.”

“Yeah... in a bar,” another girl chimed in, “On _Halloween_.”

I tried to remember the face of the man they were talking about, but my memory of his eyes blended into the flashing lights of the club. Even if I wasn’t drunk, I knew it would have been hard to remember him. Because the truth was that he wasn’t the person I wanted to see when I closed my eyes. 

“Leave her alone. She’s trying to stay _pure for her professor_ ,” my friend snickered.

Despite the treachery, I still caught her before she almost pushed us both straight off the curb in her drunken state. But it wasn’t her opinion I was worried about, because at that point, I was certain she would remember none of it by the time class rolled around come Monday. It was our other acquaintance that I responded to, with a very squeaky and unreliable, “I am not doing that!”

“Yeah, what she wants isn’t pure at all,” the mess on my shoulder droned. That was enough of a reason for me to drop her, although it really resulted in both of us barely staying on our feet on the somewhat crowded sidewalk.

“Stop! It’s not like that!”

“Sure it’s not.”

Then, something else caught her attention. Knowing her, I figured that it was either a man in a scandalous costume, or it was a two for one drink deal plastered in front of a bar. I assumed it was the latter, because as soon as she finished talking, she grabbed hold of our hands and yanked us against the brick wall of the next bar.

“So you wouldn’t mind if, theoretically, Professor Reid saw you in your costume?” she asked.

I like to think that I am a relatively smart girl. After all, I had made my way to graduate school, and Spencer seemed to think that I wasn’t a complete hopeless idiot. But in that moment, I couldn’t understand why on earth she would ever think to ask me that.

Running my hands over the fuzzy pink bodysuit I was wearing, I tried to picture his reaction. As soon as I tried to look down, however, the two floppy bunny ears affixed to the hood dropped over my eyes.

“I-I mean, I guess not…?” I mumbled, my face growing hot from something other than the alcohol, “I’m wearing it in public, so...”

But then she said it — the most terrifying two words I’d ever heard in my life.

“Okay – good.”

My eyes shot up immediately, trying to follow her eyes through the crowd of drunk, costumed people. By the time that I spotted him, somewhat thankfully dressed in normal clothes, I was powerless to stop it.

“Dr. Reid!” My friend’s voice rang out into the night, “Dr. Reid, come over here!”

The moment our eyes met, I knew I was fucked. Totally, completely, and utterly fucked. A clever little grin filled his cheeks as he quickly spotted me trying to hide under my hood.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” I shrieked, but he was already on his way over.

“You said you didn’t mind!”

In a panicked whisper, I bit back, “ _I didn’t say call him over here!_ ”

When he grew closer, though, I corrected myself. Because it was not just Spencer who was walking over. There was someone else with him. Another man, just as tall and just as beautiful as Spencer, but with a dark complexion and an even more wicked smile.

As for my company, they had already scattered into the bar behind me, leaving me with a wordless, dumbstruck look on my face that was very poorly hidden behind bunny ears.

“H-hey Prof— Dr. Reid,” I managed to get out. 

“Hey,” he answered in a tone I’d never heard before. A slightly guarded, very entertained but mostly awkward stretch of the vowel.

The man beside him, however, was quick to question.

“Who’s this?”

As I said before, I like to consider myself a relatively bright person. But the alcohol that night had been both free and strong. So, when I was asked by a handsome man who I was on the Devil’s night, I answered honestly.

“I’m a _bunny_!” I cried, bringing my hands together over my chest and turning to present the small pink pompom affixed to my lower back.

“I can see that,” the stranger replied through a genuine chuckle. But while the action was amusing to at least two of us in the conversation, Spencer looked mortified. It wasn’t necessarily negative, though.

I couldn’t be sure, of course, considering that I had already consumed more liquor that night than I had in the past month, but something told me that Spencer was less humiliated by me, and more worried about how blatant his response to my answer was. Because when he spoke, he did so through a smile.

“She’s uh... my teaching assistant.”

“Teaching assistant, huh?” his friend repeated, clearly amused _._

There was almost a challenge to the title. Something about the way he said it setting my heart into overdrive. Unable to control my own treacherous tongue, I continued to dig myself a wonderfully sized hole to jump in to.

“I’m also very good at hopping,” I said. 

Once again, the better company of the two laughed. Spencer, however, covered his smile with a hand that brought attention to just how red his face had grown over the course of a few seconds. I was so distracted by it, lost in the way I could still see upturned lips just from his eye shape alone, that I failed to acknowledge the other man for a suspicious length of time.

“Well hey, don’t let me get in the way of you two catching up. Reid, I’ll go tell the hostess we’re here, so the others know where to go.”

With a firm pat on the shoulder, the man almost turned to walk away. But before he could, I drew him back again.

“Ooh, is there a party?”

Spencer, finally able to speak again, rushed his reply.

“No, it’s nothing.”

It was obviously not nothing, though. Judging by the toothy grin that his friend flashed, it was a very big not-nothing.

“Did he not tell you?” he asked with an incredulous, mischievous tone, “It’s his _birthday._ ”

And it was, by far, the most insulting, scandalous news I’d heard that night. Enough to elicit a sharp gasp and hand reaching out to grab his wrist in a way I knew I shouldn’t have.

“You didn’t tell me it’s your birthday!”

My mind was racing, kicking myself for having not figured it out sooner. I was trying to recall the monthly staff newsletter, but then quickly remembered that I usually relied on Spencer to summarize them for me.

“It’s not my birthday,” he explained with a sigh, “It was a few days ago.”

His friend seemed pleased by my response, although he clearly saw it dwindling. My heels had already dropped back down with my hands that fell away, signaling a very different emotion than the excitement from seconds prior.

“We’re meeting up with some people for drinks and dinner. You want to come?” he asked, trying to convince me before it was too late.

But the moment had passed, replaced by loud, insecure ranting that insisted that Spencer wouldn’t have avoided telling me his birthday unless he didn’t want me to know. That meant he either didn’t enjoy making a fuss out of his birthday, or he didn’t want _me_ to, specifically.

“Uhh...”

“Don’t answer that,” Spencer cut in, swiftly raising a hand to dismiss the other man whose name I finally learned. “Thanks Derek, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Suit yourself,” he mumbled back. But Derek, in all of his disappointment, didn’t fail to draw out one more flustered laugh from the two of us who remained as he gave a tiny half-wave and sang, “Goodbye, _Bunny_.”

Spencer’s neck craned back, never once leaving his friend until he had safely entered the restaurant. Once he was sure that he was safe from ridicule, or at least observation, his entire demeanor changed.

“I’m sorry about that,” he offered, but I couldn’t accept. If anyone had been a bother here, it was me (and my friends).

“No, I’m sorry I bothered you!” I rushed.

The silence stretched between us, an unsettling reminder that we rarely interacted outside of work. That he’d never known me to party, and I’d never thought of him doing something as routine and normal as celebrating a birthday. It shouldn’t have been strange, but it was.

Perhaps that feeling was what drove me to continue, proudly stating, “I promise that I will have all your work ready first thing in the morning.”

It wasn’t until Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed and his mouth opened in a strange, lopsided grin that I’d realized I made a mistake.

“Um...” he spoke through laughter, “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

“I’m very motivated?”

Thankfully, he saw the humiliation and was happy to offer me a graceful escape from my humiliation. “How about I give you until Tuesday, instead?”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best, huh?”

I gladly took it, staring down at my heels as I tried to find anything else to focus on. Anything that wasn’t his eyes that seemed even more powerful after dark. But true to the magnetism I always experienced in his vicinity, I was drawn back into golden irises full of an emotion that made my heart beat twice as hard.

“Where did your friends go?” he asked. I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I just threw my thumb over my shoulder and towards the bar behind me. I didn’t turn away from him then, too scared to acknowledge that I would be leaving him soon. That we would go our separate ways again and I would have to wait until Tuesday to drown in the honey of his eyes again. 

Sure enough, Spencer gave a solemn nod and cleared his throat before mumbling, “Right. You should probably go find them, so they don’t get worried.”

But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay with him, the rest of the world be damned. I wanted to feel his eyes on me longer, especially when they started to wander my figure that I’d secretly hoped he would see.

I could pretend to hate my friend for calling him over all I wanted, but when I slipped into the costume hours earlier, I’d wondered what he would do if he saw me like this. And now that the answer was in front of me, torn between the exposed skin of my thighs and chest, I wanted to experience it for as long as possible.

With my fingers on the zipper to try and calm my heart, the inebriation manifested in soft giggles as I replied, “I think I’m pretty safe with you, Professor.” 

Spencer didn’t need to vocalize his disagreement. I saw his contention in the form of wayward eyes falling to my hands that fiddled with the tiny piece of plastic keeping me covered. When they trailed back up the zipper teeth to meet my eyes again, they were filled with a hunger that took my breath away.

Unfortunately for us, though, our smitten haze wasn’t shared by anyone else in the vicinity. Especially not the drunk pack of men who passed, completely unaware of the amount of space they took up on the sidewalk. I don’t even remember one of them running into me, but I definitely remembered what followed in extreme, _vivid_ detail.

Spencer caught me, quickly and more gracefully than I thought him capable of moving. His arms were locked around me, not only preventing me from face planting on the concrete but causing me to press my face directly against him.

Before he had a chance to say or do much of anything else, I placed my hands on his chest and tore myself away from the warmth of his embrace. Because I was already drunk enough on the alcohol — I didn’t need to be any more inebriated from him.

“S-See? You caught me!” I squeaked.

I didn’t miss the fact his hands stayed on my waist even with the added distance, his fingers subtly digging into and stroking the plush fabric. I didn’t try to stop them, either.

“Are you going to be okay? Should I take you home?”

I knew it wasn’t how he’d meant it, but my inner voice still pleaded, _Yes, God, please, yes!_ My outer voice, however, clung to reason and respectability.

“No! Don’t miss your birthday dinner!” I insisted, but he didn’t look convinced. “I’m fine, seriously. I just suck at walking in heels.”

Any part of me that would have normally been offended by his insistence that I couldn’t handle myself while drinking was quelled by my desire to keep his hands on me as long as possible. Although there was enough space for my arms between our chests, I swore I felt his fluttering heartbeat against my fingers. I thought of hummingbirds.

Resigned to my stubbornness, Spencer took a moment longer to stroke patterns through the pink fabric wrapped around my waist before he sighed, “If you say so.”

“I do!” I giggled, leaning closer like I might convince him not to leave at all, “So you better listen up, mister Professor man.”

The look he gave me was sweet, honeyed bliss. But even that seemed minuscule in comparison to the way his hands slid over my sides, making their way over my shoulders and gently brushing the errant bunny ears back out of my face. He left them there, too, with a barely-there caress of my face.

“You look cute,” he said, like it wouldn’t break my heart. 

Shier than he’d ever seen me before, I somehow managed to still look him in the eye as I answered, “So do you.”

It was a good thing I’d been paying attention, too. If I hadn’t been staring into his eyes, I would have missed the flash of chaotic playfulness that appeared just as he glanced down at the space between our chests.

I wouldn’t have been prepared at all when he dropped one of his hands from my face to the zipper of my costume. Not to say that anything could have prepared me for the way it felt to have his knuckle brush against the skin just below the lace bralette that had been meant to protect my modesty.

Before I could even comprehend the delicious friction of our skin, it was gone. Spencer pulled the zipper up to my chin, releasing the plastic in favor of grabbing hold of my chin once more.

“Be careful with that zipper,” he instructed, “I don’t need you getting hypothermia this early in the semester.”

Unsure of how else to respond, my body responded on instinct as it stammered, “I-I promise.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again, and my autopilot continued.

“Double promise. Promise squared.”

“Okay. You have my number so... call me if you need anything.”

I absently nodded, but Spencer accurately concluded that I hadn’t actually processed what he’d said. When he let go of me, he took the time to smooth out the bunched up fabric over my shoulders. I tried to convince myself that he was just interested in the soft fluff, but it was hard to ignore the hunger that’d only grown stronger. The darkness that rivaled the moonless hallow’s eve.

“I don’t mind giving you a ride home if it means you get back safe,” he said with a deathly seriousness strongly contrasted by the flippancy that followed. “Otherwise I’ll have more work for Tuesday.”

I was grateful for the shift, because it made the loss of his hands hurt less. My chest filled with laughter that quickly burst from me with frantic, messy words.

“Of course! The work. For Tuesday. Okay! Thank you!”

“For what?” he also said through laughter.

“I— don’t know.”

Spencer turned away from me, looking behind him at the obligations that would tear us apart. I wondered if he, too, was busy contemplating how well it suited just how different we were. How two establishments side by side could house such different things. How we were frequenting opposite ends of the spectrum.

Whatever he was thinking about, however, it didn’t break his spirits too badly. Because before he sent me on my merry way, he flashed me the goofiest little bouncing peace sign before he sang, “Hop along, little bunny.”

So I did, turning back to my life and letting him return to his. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of his eyes following me until the darkness of the bar swallowed the space between us.

Still, I didn’t need him to be there to remember how it felt for his hands to roam my body like familiar territory. I saw that look in his eyes every time that I closed my own and remembered how it made my legs shake like weak stems bending to the wind.

I decided then that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that he’d seen me in my costume. In fact, I think he quite liked it.

——————————————————

There are few things more relentless than Derek Morgan. Death and taxes, perhaps. When it came to mocking me, there wasn’t a single missed opportunity. Even at the darkest hour, I trusted him to be consistent and predictable.

That was precisely why it made no sense that I had made it through an entire dinner and drinks outing with the team without him mentioning what had happened. Not even once. I almost let myself be relieved. Perhaps time spent with a child that can talk back did him some good, I thought. But when the time finally came for us to take our leave, I realized my mistake. He wasn’t holding back out of the kindness of his heart.

No, Derek wanted to wait until there was no escape route. He wanted to have me trapped in a car hurtling down a highway before he spoke the words that he’d been waiting to say all night.

“So... _Bunny_.”

“Her name is (y/n),” I quickly corrected. Unfortunately, Derek wasn’t in a merciful mood. Although there was a notable smirk on his face, his next words were uttered with a hefty dose of skepticism. A warning that it was a subject that ought to be approached with a critical sincerity.

“Her name is _Trouble_. That’s what her name is,” he said, shaking his head. 

“She’s just my teaching assistant,” I said like I might actually convince myself, though we both knew that I wasn’t going to convince him. “It’s fine.”

“Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”

But that time, it was me who issued the warning.

“Stop,” I ordered, meeting his eyes to find him hiding his genuine concern under jokes that weren’t really jokes at all. “I respect her. She’s very bright and she earned her position.”

“I never said she didn’t. I know she’s probably smart, but I also saw the way you looked at her.”

The words felt like a blow to the stomach — yet another reminder that my affections for her were so thinly veiled they might as well be scrawled across my skin. He didn’t need to be a profiler to notice that I was fond of the girl, but it certainly made it worse.

Because he knew that I was lying when I muttered, “You don’t need to worry about it.”

He _knew_ that I was lying, but he still asked, “Why’s that?”

“She’s...” I started, pausing while the word tried to form on my tongue. The word that had haunted me ever since those damned girls mentioned it. That short, simple little noun that had taken a cursory affection and turned it into full blown lust.

“She’s a virgin.”

Derek’s brows jumped up his face, his jaw dropping the same way mine had when I first heard the news. Then, just as I had, he put the pieces together and realized that it should have been a foregone conclusion.

“Trouble with a capital _everything_ ,” he half laughed.

But this wasn’t a joking matter, and I really wished that I could make him believe that. That definitely wouldn’t happen, though. Not when he looked up to see me hiding behind my hands, sinking into my seat like it would get me out of the conversation.

“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s obviously waiting.”

It was the wrong thing to say. I should have seen his response coming from a mile away. But I didn’t, and so I was forced to listen to his childish giggles that were followed with an even more lighthearted crooning.

“Yeah, waiting for the right professor to come teach her the lesson on the birds and the bees.”

“Cut it out.”

Without even looking, he astutely observed, “Kid, you’re blushing.” 

“Yeah, because you’re talking about me fuc–”

The word never made it out, getting caught between my teeth as I bit down on my tongue damn near hard enough to make it bleed. I wished it would. I wanted the iron to drown me and rid me of the sinful things it sought to do, instead. Opting for a more… distinguished explanation, I eventually stammered the rest of the thought.

“You’re talking about me... _deflowering_ my significantly younger employee!”

“You can say fuck, Reid,” he deadpanned, “I think you’re old enough now.”

“I don’t want to. It sounds too... crude.”

I didn’t expect him to understand. How could he? He’d only seen her when she was at her most provocative… by far. Part of me envied him, to be able to sequester her innocence and view her as just another girl.

But she wasn’t like anyone else. She was an untouched bloom, a magnolia of unearthly shades. A beautiful blossom that had broken through the concrete walls I’d maintained for so many years. A tantalizing taste of the life outside that I refused to let in.

A fucking _tease_.

“Too crude for _little miss innocent bunny_?” Derek cooed, and it was so uncomfortably close to my thoughts that I couldn’t help the way I snapped back.

“Are you done?”

As we pulled into my parking lot, Derek just waved off my hostility, recognizing it as nothing but misfired shame and anguish at the thing I wanted being out of my reach.

“Yeah, I’m done. I hope you had fun, even with the teasing.”

I chose not to dignify the second half of the statement, climbing out of the car like I couldn’t step away from the conversation fast enough. But of course, I knew that only made my guilt more apparent. My culpability was clear and conclusive. There was no argument to be made.

“You know I’m right!” he shouted just before the door shut. A final reminder, one last cautionary call for the beast inside of me to keep itself hidden lest I allow myself to sink my teeth into something pure.

“Goodnight!”

Few things changed when I reached the confines of my apartment walls. Fantasies had only devolved into a vividness that was borderline frightening. How easily I could get lost in visions of her, only promising my return in exchange for my imagination agreeing to become a reality that I would get a chance to experience.

But that wasn’t fair to her. She was just a girl doing her job with an astounding amount of patience and understanding for her hopeless romantic of a boss. For a moment, the guilt became so overwhelming that I let it win. I managed to swallow my newly acquired memories well enough to navigate my nightly routine without wishing she was there every step of the way.

Wishing that she would call me. That she would grant me the excuse to return to her, to touch her as freely as I had earlier. I imagined a world where, upon arriving to her destination, she invited me in.

As I collapsed on my bed, I wondered if she would have preferred the privacy of my home. A place far enough away from other students and academics to finally see me as something more than a superior. Something attainable in a way she never seemed to be.

Just as I closed my eyes to give in to the dreams, my phone buzzed. The sound set off every nerve in my body, all of them very poorly coordinating to allow me to grab the device and turn it on to reveal her name.

“ _Hey Professor! I just wanted to let you know that I got home…”_

I’d never opened a notification so quickly, but I should have waited. I should have paused and taken the time to notice that what I was opening wasn’t just a collection of letters and symbols.

It was a set of pictures.

Pictures of her.

_“Safe and sound and zippered up. No hypothermia for this bunny tonight,_ ” she tagged onto the end, _“Sweet dreams!”_

How could I ever dream of anything but her? How was I meant to turn off my phone now, knowing that she was there; her drunken, lustful stare on display? I only tore my eyes away from her face long enough to notice her surroundings. I took extensive, painstaking notes on the color of the sheets on her bed and the way the zipper I’d tugged at to control myself from taking her had fallen away again.

I could feel the softness of her skin against my knuckle again. I heard the way her breath nearly broke at the force with which she sucked in air at the feeling of me touching her. How hard she pressed herself against me, how her back arched when I held her and how she never even tried to stop my hands from finding new places to rest.

They worked diligently now, too, trying to keep her awake and with me for as long as I could, but also wanting to free myself of obligations so that she wouldn’t notice how long I’d stared at the pictures she’d sent.

“ _Goodnight, little bunny,_ ” I sent before adding, _“I’ll be counting rabbits instead of sheep tonight._ ”

As if to reward my efforts, another picture flooded my screen. Her face was scrunched up in an adorable innocence, half covered with her hand but still effortlessly beautiful.

I stopped myself from responding again. I forced myself to stop, to prevent treacherous hands from calling her and begging her to let me come to her. It wasn’t fair — it was manipulative, downright evil, even — to take advantage of her inebriated state to hoard any insight she might provide.

But she’d already sent these… So, would it be so wrong to indulge in her? By touching my own body to the thought of her, would I taint her? Did I care even if it did? Maybe it was for the best to plant the seed of impurity now, to strip her of her power over me.

But deep down, I knew that I would still want her. I would still wish that the hand that sneaked beneath the sheets belonged to her. I could almost feel it as my hand traversed familiar territory. It would be new for her, and it would be new for me to feel the delicate, unmarred skin of her palm slowly sliding down my stomach. Her fingers bashfully brushing through soft curls at the base of me, still too nervous to hold me the way I needed her to.

Her face would be buried in my shoulder, with dew from her breath wetting my neck and raising the hairs on my arms. I would take her hand in mine and guide her to wrap her trembling hand around my cock.

Just like I was doing to myself now, with my other hand still holding the phone displaying the image of innocence. My hand wasn’t as soft or inexperienced as hers would be, but as long as my eyes stayed on her half-lidded gaze staring back at me, I could pretend.

I could hear her panting my name— my real name, _Spencer_ — in my ear, praising the feel of silky skin beneath her fingertips. She would whisper about how she wanted to feel it elsewhere, too. She would beg for me to replace a hand for her most precious place.

That damned angelic girl showing her hand on the zipper would beg me to steal away her innocence. She would unveil herself slowly, knowing that I needed the time to memorize every inch of her skin as it was seen by another for the first time. Seen by me, and only me. The vision would be for my consumption and indulgence.

I wanted it. I wanted her.

My stomach tensed as I pictured the girl staring back at me straddling my hips. I stroked myself harder, faster, letting my thumb trace down her body on my screen.

_If I stole it from her, would it be mine?_

Would she be trapped as I was, only able to feel anything when I was with her? Would she dream of me? Would she cherish each and every memory of my touch and play it back in her mind? When she felt the urge to break and burn, would she picture my hands lighting the match?

_If I ruined her, would she be mine?_

I pictured the girl on the screen with tears in her eyes, her mouth stuck open in a silent scream and her hands clutching desperately to mine. I imagined how tightly her body would grip me as I fucked her. How hard it would fight the intrusion of my sinful touch. How I would hold her down despite the resistance until she gave in to me. Until I broke her, thoroughly and irreparably.

_She would be mine._

That was the thought that took me over the edge, all energy that was not delegated to my hand feverishly stroking my cock remained with my other hand to hold her picture in front of me. It never even wavered, never once shaking and risking losing any clarity. Even my eyes refused to close all the way.

_She would be mine._

The warm, sticky mess of my desire coated my hand and stomach, but all I could think was how it would feel to mark her as mine. To feel the excess drip back down my cock as she collapsed against my body. To know that she would never be the same, never be wholly herself again. That she’d let me inside of her soul and that when I left, I hadn’t left empty handed.

_She was_ **_already_ ** _mine._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, which her Professor is hellbent on making a little bit better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Sexual themes/fantasies

Einstein once attributed his genius to his childlike sense of humor. Studies performed since then have largely proven his point — funny people tend to have higher IQs, which makes sense when you consider the cognitive and emotional intelligence required to produce humor.

Spencer Reid was no exception. The only problem was that his humor was so remarkably niche and impossibly specific that barely anyone could understand the punchline. He insisted to me that he’d gotten better over the years, which I only barely believed… until he told me a joke that hadn’t left my mind since. A joke that he described as ‘ _just crude enough to make it palatable to the layman._ ’

" _Caffeine and Viagra are both phosphodiesterase inhibitors,_ ” he’d said — a slow start if there had ever been such a thing. But I held on to hope, hanging on the ecstatic, guileless smile he wore. And boy, was I glad I did, because what he’d said next broke me into a frankly embarrassing fit of giggles that returned with the memory every time.

 _“Which explains why both of these drugs keep you up_ ** _all_** _night._ "

The poor barista stuck working the busy early morning shift eyed me like I’d grown two heads when I once again devolved into laughter for no apparent reason. I almost felt embarrassed about it, but then I reassured myself that if she’d heard Dr. Spencer Reid tell a drug-induced-boner joke, she would also laugh about it forever.

I’d been thinking about him a lot lately. Not in a perverse way, either, despite his increasing comfort in breaching such topics in my presence. It was more like I’d started to infuse him into my every day, finding him in whatever way my brain would allow. While I made my way to his office, I breathed in the soothing scent drifting from the cups that were precariously perched in flimsy cardboard.

The smell took me back to quiet moments in his office. The kind of simple serenity that accompanied silence between two people who need not speak to share ideas. Where the second you looked away, you felt their eyes follow you, like the universe couldn’t maintain its structural integrity without one of you looking at the other.

It was intoxicating and alluring; so easy to lose myself in. Something I knew was dangerous for a number of reasons.

For example, when I am not paying the utmost attention to my surroundings, I have a tendency to lose track of where I am and what I’m doing. I also tend to… drop things. Especially hot and otherwise dangerous things.

Things like the two cups of coffee that finally became too much for shallow, defective cardboard.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” I screeched as I became acutely aware of every place where scorching hot, drenched clothing hung on angry skin. Normally, I would at least _try_ to sound more dignified while on my way to work, but it hardly seemed like it mattered anymore.

I was too busy hurriedly tearing at my shirt and dropping everything else I was holding. I’d gotten three whole buttons on my shirt popped by the time I remembered it wasn’t technically necessary. I dropped my bag immediately at the thought, tugging on the hem of the shirt and trying to bring it over my head.

Unfortunately, I still hadn’t regained my grace, and in the muddled mess of fabric, I’d also grabbed hold of my undershirt. Which meant that whoever was walking through the empty halls of the early morning in academia would find me, with my stomach exposed and clothing dripping while unintelligible curses flowed freely from my lips.

I expected most people would probably just turn around and leave. I probably would’ve. The giant splatter of coffee and the absolute idiot slipping in it were beyond saving.

But there was at least one person who saw the mess and stayed.

I smelled his cologne before I felt his hand was pressed over the bare skin of my lower back. Despite the fact my skin was burning, it welcomed the warmth of his touch. My body stopped at his command, waiting for him to break me free of the paradoxically frozen state I was in.

He pulled the shirt back down, just enough that I could see him when he wrapped his cardigan around my shoulders and started guiding me into his office, which I’d somehow managed to almost walk straight past in my daze. I wished that I could go back there, to the imaginary world where he hadn’t just seen me half disrobed and cursing while covered in the coffee that I’d meant to give to him.

Spencer’s hands left me once the door was shut, probably trusting, or at least hoping, that I could figure out the mess on my own. Oddly enough, I didn’t notice any signs of him staring at me. Like he only felt comfortable looking when I was clothed.

I tried not to think about it. Once I did manage to free myself of one of the shirts — without further flashing my boss — the anxiety brewing inside of me burst out in the form of frantic shouting.

“Hi Professor! I’m so sorry, I spilled the coffee!”

“Yeah, I... saw the puddle,” he mumbled, throwing a cursory glance back at the hallway before his eyes met mine with a terrifying level of compassion, “Are you alright?”

“Besides the boiling liquid on my skin and the horrid embarrassment? I guess,” I mumbled back before shouting, “Shit! This is why that woman sued McDonald’s! Why do stores serve coffee like that?!”

Spencer didn’t really say anything. In fact, he kind of just stood as frozen as I had been, staring at everything around me rather than meeting my eyes again. But while he seemed somewhat cool and composed, I continued to tug at my clothes to try and avoid the friction. It was then that he cleared his throat, covering his face just like he’d done when he saw me in an arguably more provocative position the week before.

Arguably, I said. I should have known that Spencer would win any argument. I should have considered why he was making such a point of not looking at me while I clawed at the white undershirt turned beige. But I didn’t. Not until I looked down to inspect the state of my skin.

I realized then that Spencer had been trying to figure out a way to inform me that not only had the coffee turned my shirt a different shade — it had also eliminated the opacity.

He could see my bra. Spencer Reid, my boss, was trying not to stare at my very clearly visible bra.

“God, this is the worst Monday of all Mondays!” I whined between half-sobs, “and Mondays are already bad, Professor!”

There must have been something else in that cry, too. Something akin to permission. Enough for him to step closer, managing to avoid looking at my chest in the process. I’d entirely forgotten that he’d wrapped me in his cardigan until he pulled it tighter around my shoulders like his own version of an embrace.

“That they are, Bunny.”

If my skin had been heated before, it turned to flames at the use of the nickname. It was honestly a pure work of magic that the liquid on me didn’t turn vaporize the second I’d heard the word.

_Bunny?_

I pushed the thought away as quick as humanly possible, focusing instead on the way my clothes were going from uncomfortably hot to frigid as a result of the usually refreshing air conditioning. But when I was once again reminded of the obvious undergarment, I sighed.

“I can probably ask a friend to bring me a replacement shirt, or just go to class like this,” I thought aloud, “No one really looks at me, anyway...”

Spencer’s response came immediately, his hands flying up in protest as he shouted, “No!”

I wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that, or even which part of the statement he was objecting to, so he was met with a wide-eyed, slow blinking stare.

“I-I mean, I have a shirt you can borrow. I don’t want to subject you to any further embarrassment,” he explained at a significantly more appropriate volume, “You can just wear my extra shirt.”

He turned away from me before I could respond, shuffling through something hidden beneath his desk that created more questions than answers for me.

“Why do you have an extra shirt?”

“Go bag,” he said in the most nondescript manner. It wasn’t necessarily abnormal, either. The question I’d asked didn’t spark any concerns in his mind, but it also wasn’t the question that I felt needed to be asked.

What I really wanted to say was caught in my throat. My hands clamped together in front of me tighter than my jaw that resisted opening to make way for the thoughts that felt more scandalous than they should’ve been.

“U-Um, Professor don’t you think—“

“Here you go,” he offered with a smile. I took the large, plain black shirt with a hefty dose of caution, my hands shaking along with my broken voice that still couldn’t finish the sentence from before.

Spencer finally noticed the struggle on my face, and I watched his body move from comfortable to defensive in a matter of seconds. Like he was worried he’d done something wrong in trying to be kind.

He hadn’t, but I felt like I had.

“Won’t people... you know?” I mumbled, motioning a hand between the two of us, “I’m showing up to your class at 8AM wearing your clothes…”

I thought that the words alone would be enough. I thought that the gesture was overkill. But Spencer was still staring at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed in thought.

I was going to have to say it.

_Won’t they think we’re having sex_?

There was no way I was going to be able to say it.

“Aren’t you concerned about people getting… the wrong idea?” I blurted out, instead.

The confusion on his face shifted to a clever little self-assured smirk so fast that I almost missed the transition. My stomach flipped from the sight, but then he spoke again, and what had felt like it was filled with butterflies turned to rocks.

“I’d much rather them gossip about something that’s _not_ happening than watch the young boys ogle you instead of paying attention.”

It wasn’t the words, but the way that he’d said them. Like they were silly, like the idea of us being together was so preposterous it could only be entertained by people he perceived to be children.

I was foolish, too.

“Don’t worry about them,” he said with a wave, “Just worry about making this Monday a little bit better.”

“O-okay. Thanks,” I whispered, turning and running from the room only to be reminded of the mess I’d made. But the pool of tawny liquid on the floor wasn’t the most disastrous thing anymore. That honor was reserved for the state of my heart, begrudgingly continuing to beat despite being broken.

Scooping up my bag that I’d abandoned before, I tried to allow myself to be happy about the little things. For instance, the fact that the shirt Spencer had handed me was probably the softest thing I’d ever felt in my life. It made sense, considering the sensory issues he always described.

Still, I waited until I was in the safety of a bathroom stall before I buried my face in the fabric. It smelled just like him, a mixture of freshly done laundry and vanilla. Much better than the cheap, burnt coffee that covered me. Funny enough, that sort of smelled like him, too.

By the time I slipped into his clothes, I had almost forgotten his joke entirely. I was too lost in the joy of sweater paws from his cardigan and fabric that felt like a hug. Or at least, what I’d imagined a hug from him would be like.

The energy it provided me was a better pick-me-up than any cup of coffee had ever been. I kept my squealing as quietly as I could, bouncing in place just like the nickname he’d chosen to let stick. But before I returned to him, I felt something. A small, noticeable weight in one of the cardigan pockets.

If I’d thought about it for longer than five seconds, if I’d reminded myself that they were his clothes and not mine, I would’ve let it be. I wouldn’t have pulled the little object from its safe hiding spot. It would have stayed locked away, leaving me none the wiser of its presence.

But I didn’t think about it, and then there I was, holding onto the sobriety token I should’ve seen coming.

Not that it was a bad thing; I already knew Spencer had a history with drugs. He’d mentioned it in passing in class and was deeply involved with a number of volunteer programs around the area. At one point, I’d even taken it upon myself to research his history.

That research, while I regretted it now, feeling that it violated his privacy some way or another, led me to a second conclusion. As my thumb ghosted over the embossed number five, I realized that Spencer had been sober since he was released from prison.

My heart swelled with pride and relief that felt shameful. I didn’t want the token to have such a profound effect on the image of him I’d already crafted in my mind. Lord knew I didn’t need any more reasons to idolize him. And, at the end of the day, I’d only discovered this information by happenstance.

Part of respect, I decided, meant ignoring the way that fate seemed to push us together. If Spencer ever wanted my opinion on his sobriety or strength, surely, he would just ask. So, I slipped the chip back into the pocket and made my way back to him without worry for what it meant.

While I had no worries, Spencer was another story. I’d barely even made it through the door when he saw me. All of the papers he’d been holding immediately fell from his hands the same way the coffee had fallen from mine.

“Oh no! My clumsiness was contagious!” I laughed, bolting over to help him only to find his face an unhealthy shade of red. He chuckled back but said nothing else as he scrambled to pick up the loose-leaf that had splayed itself all over the floor.

Once we were back on our feet and as collected as we could be considering the circumstances of the morning thus far, his eyes met mine again. His cheeks were still flushed, unable to focus on anything specific and choosing to traverse my body the same way his hands had on Halloween.

“Sorry,” he mumbled in a way that made me wonder if he knew I could hear him, “I was distracted by how unfair it is that you look better in my clothes than I do.”

It was my turn to be flustered, but Spencer didn’t let the moment drag on. He tore himself away from me in every sense of the word, marching past me and halfway exiting the room before he found the courage to look at me again.

“Are you ready to head to class?” he asked as if it were an option.

I suppose to him, it was. For a second I imagined what the future would hold for us if I’d said no. What would he have done if I begged him to stay with me, instead? What if we rebelled against expectation and remained locked away in his office until we grew tired of one another? What if we never did?

My mind filled with fantasies of Spencer’s hands freely feeling my skin the way his clothes could. I could hear soft, breathy sounds of desire shaped like my name. For all of my inexperience, he would still find me intoxicating. He would grow drunk on me the same way a child finds endless joy in sweets that really ought to make them sick.

Then again, maybe he had grown used to the sugar. Maybe he wanted something more mature, a bitterness like molasses that was only earned from years I hadn’t had yet.

Regardless, I couldn’t really get into any of that. Instead, I just flashed a very awkward thumbs up to the man fifteen years my elder when I droned, “Sure am, Professor man.”

As stupid as it felt to do something so juvenile, the smile he gave was worth it.

“Alright then, Bunny,” he answered with his own little peace sign, “Let’s hop along.”

——————————————————

It hadn’t even been a week since I saw her, scantily clad in the plush, socially acceptable equivalent of lingerie. It’d been even less time since I admitted my own weakness to her. I’d replayed the memories of her visceral responses to my touch enough times that I should be sick of it. But there was no tiring of her.

I considered deleting the photos she’d sent me, convinced that it was cruel to keep them when she’d only sent them while inebriated and undoubtedly exhausted beyond belief.

But when I woke up in the morning, my stomach still reeling from the knowledge of what I’d done, all that she’d sent was a curious collection of emotes and a very brief note.

“ _Oops_!” she’d written, “ _Bad bunny_?”

I put that phrase out of my mind immediately, unable to handle the way it incited the desire for destruction in my veins.

“ _I’m always glad to hear that you are safe_.”

That was the end of the conversation, and I was grateful for that much. Even the few words we’d exchanged would haunt me until I saw her again. Of course, the torture ended there, but only for a few seconds before it was replaced with other images and words.

It’d been hours since I’d found her flailing about half-naked in the hall while uttering rushed curses that sounded too crude for her lips. It’d been hours since I felt the soft skin of her lower back and became lost in an entirely different set of fantasies.

It’d been even less time since I saw her standing at my door, pulling on the sleeves of my sweater and staring at me with nervous, shifty glances. Completely unaware of just how beautiful she was in her simplicity. How much more torturous it was to see her wearing my clothes than any lustful suffering that lingerie or nudity could elicit.

I thought that it would get better throughout the day, but it didn’t. It only got worse.

I’d stepped out of my office for barely half an hour, but I returned to find her curled up on the plush chair. Her shoes were slipped off, revealing colorful socks that clashed with every other neutral color she wore. It somehow made me want her even more.

I stayed stuck for a few seconds longer, watching her with bated breath and shameless admiration. She was so caught up in the papers on her lap that she didn’t even notice my presence until the door clicked shut. It was then that she turned to see me, allowing a smile to blossom across her face despite eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“What’s all of this?” she asked, gesturing to the collection of bags hanging from my wrists.

“Did you know…” I started before my heart stopped at how she always leaned forward with excitement whenever I started a sentence that way, “that food is one of the best ways to solve a terrible Monday?”

“Which scientific study did you get that from?”

I paused again, debating telling her the many studies that would support such a theory, but then decided against it. Instead, I sought out her laughter and childlike joy that always brought out the best of her.

“Garfield,” I answered.

Sure enough, the office filled with the melodious sound of her happiness. I moved as quietly as I could, thinking back to when I was younger and thought of how powerful bottled laughter would be if I could capture it. Hers would surely right so many wrongs.

“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but I figure it’s the least I could do.”

She approached me to assist before I’d even made it to my desk, and although I thought her hands were far too soft to be bothered with something like this, I allowed her to help.

“You could do nothing, you know. It was my own fault.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to.”

She laughed again, shier and shrinking into the sweater as she tried to find her place in such a domestic activity as sharing a meal with me in private. I thought of how it was a taste of my dreams.

Because as often as I did fantasize about her, undone, bare-skinned, and defenseless to my desires, I just as often envisioned her just like this. In fact, I found those fantasies more dangerous. They couldn’t be written off as mere lust. They were another, scarier thing.

“Well, lucky you I am an exhausted, broke grad student, so free food will always win me over,” she muttered, half-sarcastically but just sad enough to bother me.

“Duly noted,” I said.

I hid away the promises I wanted to make. That if she were mine, she would want for nothing. That I would give her everything she needed to bloom. That I would prune away any neighboring flower that dared get in her way or block the sunlight. There would be no need to worry of predators or pollinators intruding, because she would belong to me and only me.

I would be her earth, her rain, and her sun. I would be surely and shamelessly selfish.

Her shoulders rose with a cheeky, excited little giggle once she had collected her food. I wanted nothing more than to let her enjoy it to her heart’s content… but there was a problem.

“Nuh-uh, no way,” I chuckled before she had a chance to return to the chair with her precarious paper plate, “Get in the other chair.”

Her face scrunched up, bouncing back and forth between the two seats in the room like she’d heard something so strange that it must have been a mistake.

“Wh— your chair?”

“I will not have you ruining another shirt today,” I explained. It caused the confusion to quickly shift to an embarrassed frustration within seconds. Just as she opened her mouth to protest my teasing, I continued with something I knew would tie her tongue until she could no longer argue.

“If you’re so worried about what they’ll say when you show up in my shirt, just think of how they’ll talk if they catch you wearing _nothing_.”

That stubborn little thing still tried. Her mouth floundered, strange sounds of protest starting but never finishing until she gave up. She sulked over to the seat with an odd amount of self-satisfaction. She settled into my space as comfortably as she always did. With an ease that was almost unsettling to my tired, tortured heart.

Swapping places with her for that little bit of time was a good idea. I hadn’t expected that it would bring me as much serenity as it did. My usually busy lips kept their focus on the food, opting to listen to her ramble about any and everything that came to mind.

It wasn’t until she was fifteen minutes into an explanation on her paper that I realized how little I’d tried to learn about her life outside of me. Whether it was self-preservation or narcissism, I’d never decided. But what I was certain of was that it had been a brutal form of self-sabotage.

Because as I sat there, watching her clumsily, excitedly swinging her fork and proving my point that it had been a good decision to give her the desk, I saw her for in a different light than before.

She was not just a beautiful, mysterious flower peeking through the concrete. She was the trembling giant, the clonal colony of thousands of quaking aspen trees. An extravagant network of roots that flowed far beyond the seed that started them.

This sprout might be new, but her soul was ancient and celestial, wise and immortal.

“Who knows?” she sighed, coming to a natural conclusion of a story I had almost missed while lost in daydreams and metaphors, “Maybe one day I’ll be a professor, too.”

“You’d be good at it.”

For once, it felt like she accepted the compliment without a fight. I considered it progress all the way up until she shot back a thinly veiled taunt.

“Thanks. Means a lot from someone who has 4 stars on rate my professor!”

“Don’t forget the chili pepper,” I jokingly returned.

“Not sure I’d get one of those.”

I knew that my disagreement wouldn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, so I opted for a slightly-self-centered flattery instead.

“Just show up in that outfit,” I said with a nod that barely hid my actual intention of focusing my eyes on the rest of her, “you’ll be golden.”

“You gonna let me borrow it in ten years?” she hummed.

It was a dangerous proposition, an implication that made the pitter-pattering in my chest unbearable. Rather than chasing her down the rabbit hole of fantasies, I just chuckled before I answered, “You know how to find me.”

Then it happened again. Her face slowly changed, growing from a cautious optimism to a yearning. A subtle hint of words left unsaid. And although she wet her lips and set down her fork, the words never came out. They stayed stalled in her throat, and there was no discernible way for me to drag them out of her without hurting the both of us.

When a loud knock resounded through the room, the thought ended altogether.

“Come in,” I grimly announced, recognizing the intrusive sound as the death rattle for whatever might have been said.

As the door opened, I realized the same time (y/n) did that we had forgotten that the rest of the outside world wasn’t familiar with our dynamic. They didn’t have the backstory of how she’d perched herself on my chair with her shoes off and wearing my clothes.

Torn between scrambling to take more socially acceptable positions and the knowledge that our hurry would make us look even more suspicious, we both opted to remain frozen in place like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.

When the door opened, however, I was somewhat relieved to see someone I found completely unthreatening. My closest colleague, a woman that should really terrify me all things considered, seemed mostly perplexed when she found a young girl in my seat.

She quickly turned to me, drawing out her words as she asked, “Oh. I’m sorry, am I... interrupting something?”

“No, what can I help you with, Candy?”

“I was hoping we could talk about my current paper proposal.”

She paused, and I took the moment to follow her glower to the flower still stationary behind my desk. (Y/n) stared back, seemingly frightened by the presence of the other Professor.

“If you’re busy with... office hours…” Candy muttered before turning back to me, “we can always set up a meeting for a better time.”

Before I could address the possible tension or implication, the girl at my desk sprung to action, clearing off any sign of her presence as she spoke.

“You know, I actually need to get going.”

“Are you sure?”

She didn’t look at me when she answered, “Yeah, I’m sure your papers are more important.”

If I’d turned back to Candy, I might have seen the condescending scowl that was driving her away. If I’ve had any inclination or desire to look at Candy, I would have realized that (y/n) wasn’t trying to escape from her connection to me. She was just trying to get out of my way.

It didn’t make it any harder to watch her leave. I took solace in the fact that she held tighter to my cardigan, trusting me to keep her warm by proxy as she ventured back into the real world. The world where we couldn’t be in peace.

“Thanks for the advice, Professor,” she said before she left, “You were right. As usual.”

One last smile was shared, somber but sobering. A necessary break from the intimacy of the moment.

“See you in class.”

The office felt so much duller without her radiance, but my disappointment would have to wait. As much as I actually didn’t mind the world knowing how my heart hurt from her absence, I knew that it was best I didn’t let it impact her academic career.

“Sorry again for the intrusion,” my colleague said in a much happier voice.

“It’s not a problem at all.”

She must have noticed the way it sounded like a lie, because her tone quickly shifted back to a slightly disgruntled confusion.

“I didn’t realize she was your student, too. What class is she in?”

It was juvenile, really, the way my heart fluttered so ridiculously at the mere mention of her existence. The excuse to discuss her again.

“Oh, did she not tell you?”

Candy just shook her head with a blatantly false smile.

“Unsurprisingly modest,” I laughed, making my way back over to my seat and running my fingers over the wooden armrests like it would be the same as touching her ghost, “She’s my TA.”

“Oh… I see.”

“She was the only one who would put up with me,” I offered with a chuckle. Self-deprecating humor was the only reliable personality trait I had. It was also, unfortunately, one that most women in my life despised and refused to let sit.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

It sounded less sweet coming from her. I wrote it off as a product of the differences in their species. While the hummingbird of a girl who’d just flittered away was used to only drinking the sweetest, purest nectar, the bird of prey who’d entered relied on the work of others to gather the sweetness before they were devoured.

That wasn’t to say she was cruel; hawks are as much a miracle of nature as hummingbirds. I simply related to one more than the other. I understood one while the other remained a mystery. And I loved mysteries more than myself.

“So, you wanted to talk about your paper?”

“Oh! Yes,” she chirped, passing the packet over to me now that I’d found my way back to what she probably deemed my rightful place. “The conference is coming up so much faster than I anticipated, and I would love to hear your opinions on my first draft.”

I’d already started to read the first page when she spoke again, uncharacteristically bashful and anxious, “Since we’ll be presenting together, I figured...”

“Yeah, no problem at all,” I interrupted, not wanting her to dwell nor expand on the thought of us doing anything _together_ any more than necessary, “I can send you mine.”

It felt curt, blunt, and off putting when I said it, but she didn’t take it as such.

“Wonderful. You have such a unique voice when you’re writing. It’s very refreshing.”

Immediately, a memory appeared at the forefront of my mind and led to a laugh that I couldn’t contain. Candy seemed pleased at the sound, and I felt the need to explain.

“Thanks. (Y/n) likened it to Ray Bradbury at one point, although in different and less flattering words.”

I could hear her clear as day, quoting my words with an overdramatized effect before laughing, ‘ _Pack it up, Bradbury, you’ve got more science stuff to explain._ ’

Of course, we both found her laughter-ridden explanation of the ‘ _meme_ ’ far funnier than the original joke. She was probably the only person in the world who never seemed bothered by explaining everything to me ad nauseam.

“She is... certainly a choice as a TA,” Candy strained upon scrutinizing the smile that had returned to my face for the first time since (y/n)’s departure, “Will she be joining us at the conference?”

But then the guilt returned, wiping the smile from my face and replacing happy memories with deviant thoughts and fears.

“Oh... you know, I haven’t asked her.”

“That’s perfectly alright! I think we’ll do just fine without her.”

“Right...” I whispered, glancing back down at the stack of papers in my hand before setting it in the tray designated for (y/n). “I’ll have her look at your paper just in case.”

A lull in the conversation stretched past the point of comfort for both of us, and I glanced up at the woman I actually felt guilty for ignoring in place of fantasies that would probably never come to be. She hadn’t even done anything to warrant my disregard. She was an attractive woman — as beautiful as she was brilliant, really — she had worked very hard to garner my trust and academic collaboration. At one point, I had considered her one of the few potential candidates for something more than a purely academic partner.

But there was something about the way she looked at the honeyed girl that made my hair stand on end. A defensiveness and instinct that couldn’t be ignored.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No, that was all,” she said as she broke from what I presumed to be her own daydream, “I hope your semester keeps going well.”

“Thanks, I hope yours does, too.”

I meant it, despite the aforementioned concern. I wished her well in the semester for both selfless and selfish reasons. I wished her well because she deserved it, certainly. But the other reason, the larger one, was that I hoped she would remain distracted. I hoped that she didn’t notice the way I would slip away from her affections to chase those from a more interesting challenge. One that remained mysterious, with hair covered in pollen and lips sweet with ambrosia.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Dr. Reid.”

I failed to respond to her again before the door shut because my hands were already busy with rekindling contact with another.

“ _I have a proposition for you, Bunny._ ”

“ _Sounds ominous. I’m in_.”

The fact that the response came before I could even shut off the display was so characteristic of her that I had to laugh.

“ _You haven’t even heard it yet,_ ” I observed, to which she once again immediately responded, “ _Your point being?_ ”

“ _I’m afraid this is an obligation that does require some expansion before agreement._ ”

Her response was slower, then, and I could almost see her with a slight panic and overwhelming curiosity that grew stronger by the second.

“ _Ominous and vaguely unsettling_ ,” she said.

I considered drawing it out further, letting her imagination truly run wild with the possibilities. But then I realized that if she thought hard enough about it, she might reach the same place that had immediately come to my mind.

“ _Would you like to attend the upcoming conference with me?_ ” I relented, almost stopping there but then frantically tagging on the conditions I knew would be most likely to cause hesitation. “ _You’d have your own room, of course. The department and I will help with funds._ ”

But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to be worried.

“ _A cheap weekend away from school where I get to be a nerd with you?_ ” she sent with another set of small, smiling faces I was only just starting to understand, “ _Of course I’m going to say yes, Professor!_ ”

“ _Perfect. I’ll arrange it_.”

“ _I can’t wait!_ ”

Although I felt the same, I forced myself to end contact again. I put my phone out of reach to prevent myself from spoiling any more of my fantasies than I already had. I didn’t need her to second-guess the possibilities of a weekend away together now that she’d already agreed to it.

The thought alone sparked guilt anew. Through the entire interaction, I’d infused each word with a charge that shouldn’t have been. Each line was far more provocative than it needed to be.

It was just an academic conference. Most people found them terribly dull, not to mention physically exhausting. It would not be a time away like most couples dreamed of because _we_ were not a _couple_ in any sense of the word.

Yet… I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps there weren’t as many differences as one might think. Because while yes, most people would be bored, I didn’t think Bunny would be. Clandestine meetings made between conference meetings sounded exactly like the kind of dreams we would share.

I believed it so strongly that my mind had already drafted several narratives that would suit her. I pictured her and I sharing company in public, unafraid of public displays of affection — innocent, childish kinds, of course — because we were miles away from those who might care.

That drunken, lust-inducing, half-lidded gaze from the week before would return. Except this time, I would taste the wine on her tongue, my hands sliding not over fluffy fabric, but the same skin that I’d felt for the first time that morning.

Behind our door, I would teach her so many things. Things that she would have begged me for. Things that others would see written on her skin in the shape of my fingers and mouth. Things that she would carry with a straighter back and dripping down her legs.

I didn’t just want to destroy her. I wanted to break her so that I could build her back with gold-laced lacquer. She would be my kintsugi creation full of sugar and honey, just imperfect enough that the sticky residue of her sweetness would slip through the cracks to coat everything she touched.

And then she would touch me, and I might finally feel like I deserved anything at all.


End file.
